Community Action Quotes

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.

We can't sit around waiting for big government, big business, big religion etc. to save us. We need to get informed and take inspired action.

Change doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington

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

Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.

You keep plugging away--that's the way social change takes place. That's the way every social change in history has taken place: by a lot of people, who nobody ever heard of, doing work.

Scepticism and cynicism about politics is so great that one of the best counters to it is what you can do at a local level.

Leadership is happening, but it's not coming from the leaders of the old institutions. Everywhere you look, you see these extraordinary, sparkling new initiatives that are under way.

The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves -- in their separate, and individual capacities....In all that the people can individually do for themselves, government ought not interfere.

We as African Americans knew that if we wanted to see change, we had to step up to the plate and make that change ourselves. Not everyone comes to that realization in their lives, but thank God Linda Brown's father felt that way.

One of the things that's very important, when you're an activist and an organizer like me, is to understand that when things happen of that nature, some people become immobilized and other people begin to find solutions. And Detroit is the kind of city where we begin to find solutions.

Social change comes through people.

If you don't like what's going on, you have to get involved.

As a community organizer who holds a degree in history, I understand the fascination with history. However, there is a tendency for many of us to get engrossed in the recounting of our history, which often amounts to purely intellectual activity without material action.

The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.

The likelihood that your acts of resistance cannot stop the injustice does not exempt you from acting in what you sincerely and reflectively hold to be the best interests of your community.

The goal of each EarthEcho Expedition is to inspire and empower youth around the world with the knowledge and tools to take an active role in protecting critical natural resources in their own communities.

Small groups of people can have a really huge impact.

Music must awaken people to do their duty as citizens and act.

We all stand before history. I am a man of peace, of ideas. Appalled by the denigrating poverty of my people who live on a richly endowed land, distressed by their political marginalization and economic strangulation, angered by the devastation of their land, their ultimate heritage, anxious to preserve their right to life and to a decent living, and determined to usher to this country as a whole a fair and just democratic system which protects everyone and every ethnic group and gives us all a valid claim to human civilization, I have devoted my intellectual and material resources, my very life, to a cause in which I have total belief and from which I cannot be blackmailed or intimidated.

Strong communities shape their own futures.

When ordinary people come together, they can upset the mighty.

If people are not listening to you as individuals, it's always good to get together and make a stand for something.

We can only live the changes we wish to see: we cannot think our way to humanity. Every one of us, every group, must become the model of that which we desire to create. We must break the obsolete social and economic systems that divide the world between the over-privileged and the under-privileged. Each of us, whether government leader or protester, business executive or worker, professor or student, share a common guilt.

Every day, there's always something to be worried about; you turn on the news and see something different every day, and it's terrible. Hopefully, as Americans, and as the inhabitants of the world, we can come together. We need to change lives - whether that's conserving water, destigmatizing mental health treatment or something else. We can change lives.