I feel very happy to be living in Berkeley because there are a lot of people who are politically active here.

My protest about the post exchange seating bore some results. More seats were allocated for blacks, but there were still separate sections for blacks and for whites. At least I had made my men realize that something could be accomplished by speaking out, and I hoped they would be less resigned to unjust conditions.

Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.

To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.

I wish I could say to all those people who consider themselves anarchists or radicals: Please join the nonviolent movement. This is how Gandhi freed India. If Gandhi freed India, we can certainly free the United States from our racism, misogyny, and bigotry.

When I look back on what I did for the Left, I’m in a small way quite proud of some of it – I only wish I’d done more.

America is the student who defies the odds to become the first in a family to go to college – the citizen who defies the cynics and goes out there and votes – the young person who comes out of the shadows to demand the right to dream. That’s what America is about.

I imagine that yes is the only living thing.

And so I have studied, I have to tell you, revolutions and uprisings for a long time. They are all slightly different, but what they all look for is some kind of a mechanism to go from an authoritarian system to an open, democratic system.

Now we’re in the midst of not just advocating for change, not just calling for change – we’re doing the grinding, sometimes frustrating work of delivering change – inch by inch, day by day.

My message to all the activists is to just keep going, and I know it really may seem impossible and hopeless sometimes – it always does – so you just have to keep going because if you try hard enough and long enough you will make a difference.

Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering – because you can’t take it in all at once.

We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it.

This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it.

Frankly, if I could get away with not having to perform, I’d be very happy. It’s not my favorite thing to do.

The right of every American to first-class citizenship is the most important issue of our time.

I think the self-burning itself on practice of non-violence. These people, you see, they easily use bomb explosive, more casualty people. But they didn’t do that. Only sacrifice their own life. So this also is part of practice of non-violence.

Houses are built to live in, and not to look on: therefore let use be preferred before uniformity.

The fact is that ours is the first generation that can look disease and extreme poverty in the eye, look across the ocean to Africa, and say this, and mean it. We do not have to stand for this. A whole continent written off – we do not have to stand for this.

For way too long the politicians and people in power have got away with not doing anything at all to fight the climate crisis and ecological crisis.

To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

I’m not afraid of death, but I’m in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first.

Life must be lived and curiosity kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

The crimes against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and elsewhere, particularly Lebanon, are so shocking that the only emotionally valid reaction is rage and a call for extreme actions. But that does not help the victims. And, in fact, it’s likely to harm them.

You can rebel in different ways. Civil disobedience is rebelling. As long as it’s peaceful, of course.

To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.

Today we are engaged in a deadly global struggle for those who would intimidate, torture, and murder people for exercising the most basic freedoms. If we are to win this struggle and spread those freedoms, we must keep our own moral compass pointed in a true direction.

I grew up as this very carefree, happy kid then things turned darker for me. Maybe it was because I saw that the world wasn’t as happy a place as I had hoped it would be for me.

Acting is happy agony.

I know I got it made while the masses of black people are catchin‘ hell, but as long as they ain’t free, I ain’t free.

If you want special results, you have to feel special things and do special things together. You can speak about spirit, or you can live it.

I have been working for Africans since I was 18, when I got involved with the Nelson Mandela concerts. I got involved with debt cancellation because Desmond Tutu demanded that the world respond to that situation.

I had my jazz club and I had enough money. So I didn’t have to write for my living.

I don’t think any country is perfect. It’s our responsibility to do the best we can do to change the things we don’t like. I think that’s part of social responsibility, and everybody is going to do that in their own way.

I have all the admiration in the world for somebody like Bono, who really puts himself on the line and tries actively to do something about our world situation.

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

It’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that there are people who can’t or won’t see what Black Lives Matter is trying to accomplish.

If you don’t live your life, then who will?

I’ll live in Puerto Rico until the day I die.

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!

Every once in a while, I get mad. ‚The Lorax‘ came out of my being angry. The ecology books I’d read were dull… In ‚The Lorax,‘ I was out to attack what I think are evil things and let the chips fall where they might.

If I were a Negro, I’d be fighting, as Martin Luther King fought, for human recognition and justice. I’d rather go down with my flag flying. If you’re weak or crippled, or you can’t speak out or fight back in some way, then people don’t hesitate to treat you badly.

In order to have your voice be heard in Washington, you have to make some little contribution.

My music fights against the system that teaches to live and die.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Nothing is being done to stop the climate and ecological emergency from happening and to secure the future wellbeing for future generations.

When one begins to live by habit and by quotation, one has begun to stop living.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.

During the 60’s, I was, in fact, very concerned about the civil rights movement.

Until we’re educating every kid in a fantastic way, until every inner city is cleaned up, there is no shortage of things to do.

I saw what the Depression was doing to my students. Often they could get no jobs, or jobs which were wholly inadequate. And through them, I began to understand how deeply political and economic events could affect men’s lives. I began to feel the need to participate more fully in the life of the community.

Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

Happy the country that lives on nothing but its wits; cursed be the one that thinks it can get rich by planting or digging or drilling for wealth.

I’m not trying to follow a set of rules and stuff. I’m just living my life.

For me, writing has always come out of living a fairly to-the-bone kind of life, just really being present to a lot of life. The writing has been really a byproduct of that.

We are always getting ready to live but never living.

A riot is the language of the unheard.

I think I’m one of the most patriotic people that I’ve ever encountered in America. I consider myself a bedrock patriot. I participate very actively in local politics, because my voice might be worthwhile. I participate in a meaningful way – not by donations; I work at it.

I am involved in a freedom ride protesting the loss of the minority rights belonging to the few remaining earthbound stars. All we demanded was our right to twinkle.