Rosario Dawson Quotes

If voting could change anything, they would have made it illegal.

If Voting Changed Anything, They’d Abolish It

The Ballot or the Bullet

I ran because I became convinced after King was shot and killed, and Martin Luther King was one of the great heroes of my life, that politics is not perfect but it's the best available nonviolent means of changing how we live. If we don't like how we live, we can participate in the perfect most revolutionary act in a democracy, it's called voting.

But in this country we have one great privilege which they don't have in other countries. When a thing gets to be absolutely unbearable the people can rise up and throw it off. That's the finest asset we've got - the ballot box.

I think you have to ask yourself does voting work on the level that you are trying to effectuate change; that is the conversation you must have.

Until the Negro votes on a large scale, we will have to rely more and more on mass direct action as the one realistic political weapon.

I am a person who has never used violence himself. My present opinion is that people who have obtained the ballot should use it and solve their problems in that way. In the case of peoples who have not obtained the ballot, and who cannot control their states, I again find in my own mind a division of opinion, which is not logical, but purely a rough practical judgment. My own forefathers got their political freedom by violence; that is to say, they overthrew the British crown and made themselves a free Republic. Also by violence they put an end to the enslavement of the black race on this continent.

If people don't vote, everything stays the same. You can protest until the sky turns yellow or the moon turns blue, and it's not going to change anything if you don't vote.

There are people who have demonstrated their willingness to challenge systems and structures, and then when it comes to elections, some of those same people - I don't know where their fight went. What's interesting to me is to see people lose the revolution when it comes to elections.

A lot of people died fighting tyranny. The least I can do is vote against it.

Civil disobedience is not only the natural right of a people, especially when they have no effective voice in their own Government, but that it is also a substitute for violence or armed rebellion.

The lyrics stand today (1980). They're still my feeling about politics. I want to see the plan. I want to know what you're going to do after you've knocked it all down. I mean, can't we use some of it? What's the point of bombing Wall Street? If you want to change the system, change the system. It's no good shooting people.

Popular suffrage is in itself no guarantee of freedom. People can vote themselves into slavery.

From Gandhi to Mandela, from the American patriot to the Polish shipbuilders, the makers of revolutions have not come from the top.

You do not keep American democracy in suspense. Because, look, too many people have marched and protested and fought and died for this democracy.

To make the revolution in the United States is a slow day by day job that requires patience and discipline. It is the only way to make it. . . . All I know is that despite the fact that I am one of the people who benefit from a capitalist society, I find that any system which exploits other people cannot and should not exist.

I think, you're not blagging me on this ridiculous journey, with this bit of paper. I think if you want to change things, it's not with an X on a piece of paper, it's with an X on someone's forehead.

This is what people do in America. They get out. They demonstrate. They let their voices with heard.

We do not live in a revolutionary time. People are not prepared to contest power.

If the government fails to listen to your demands, then you will decide what is best for you.

If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.

Just by making a decision to stay out of politics, you are making the decision to allow others to shape politics and exert power over you. And if you are alienated from the current political system, then just by staying out of it, if you do nothing to change it, you simply entrench it.

People are even more wary of politicians and they are realizing that democracy isn't just about putting a cross on a ballot every four years, it's about deciding what you want and fighting for it.

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.