Phyllis Schlafly Quotes

I need to take toward a lot of things that will refine me and make me better suited for leading anyone out of any place of injustice to a place of justice.

We just have to convince other people that they have power. This is what they can do by participating to make change, not only in their community, but many times changing in their own lives. Once they participate, they get their sense of power.

You can tell people of the need to struggle, but when the powerless start to see that they really can make a difference, nothing can quench the fire.

Where progress has been made, wherever any kind of injustice has been overturned, it’s been because people acted as citizens, and not as politicians. They didn’t just moan. They worked, they acted, they organized, they rioted if necessary to bring their situation to the attention of people in power. And that’s what we have to do today.

We're looking for people out there who have demonstrated that they are leaders, have track records of achievement, and want to be part of a force... of a much larger force of determined people who want to bring about, ultimately, institutional change.

Community organizing is all about building grassroots support. It's about identifying the people around you with whom you can create a common, passionate cause. And it's about ignoring the conventional wisdom of company politics and instead playing the game by very different rules.

I learnt that if I want to make any difference, or changes to my world, then I've got to be involved. We need passion - that's how things change.

I'm incredibly impressed by people who organize to achieve a goal, and believe that they can make a difference and then go ahead and do just that. I think it's incredible.

I emphasize self-esteem, self-confidence, and dignity, not as an ideal, but as a real test of community organization. Without leadership development, community organizations do not have staying power.

You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals.

Change never comes from the White House. It comes from your house and my house.

Democracy comes alive not when government does anything, because government cannot be depended on to rectify serious injustices. It comes alive when people organize and do something about it.

Collective action is a means of power, a means by which individuals can more fully realize their individual values.

Being part of social movements like Black Lives Matter or organizations like NAACP, or any group representing a cause, gives you more resources, knowledge, and power. They can help you use your voice.

The organizer dedicated to changing the life of a particular community must first rub raw the resentments of the people of the community.

Our Revolution has been the keeper of the flame doing the vital work of building a grassroots movement that leverages the people's agenda.

The first step in community organization is community disorganization.

When we make these decisions that we're going to commit ourselves to making a difference in the life of one person every single day, what happens is we actually build a whole generation of citizen leaders.

I've done community organizing my whole life and I think to myself, as an organizer, we don't wait for people to come to us and say, 'Help us organize something.' We go out into the community, and we bring the skills to a group of people to organize themselves.

Small acts by millions of people - imagine the impact of that. If someone changes one thing, they're likely to change two things, and then three things. Then they're likely to demand that from their leadership.

Leadership is a journey - you never arrive.

To be part of building a movement, you have to keep moving.

It's the people who are doing the nonviolent organizing at the grassroots that make me think there's still hope.

We are intent on building a movement. The next step is grassroots town meetings. We must keep alive the dialogue around the covenants.

In the words of Frederick Douglas, power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will. We must be that demand. We are the ones we've been waiting for.