It’s empowering to know I am doing something, I am taking a stand, I am disrupting.

Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.

There are a lot of good women in New York.

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

Black Americans, no more than white Americans, they do not want more government programs which perpetuate dependency. They don’t want to be a colony in a nation.

None but ourselves can free our minds.

I know where I’m going and I know the truth, and I don’t have to be what you want me to be. I’m free to be what I want.

The fact is that since you’re a divine creation who originated in the world of Spirit, you have exactly the right amount of smarts to accomplish all that you need and want to do while you’re here on earth. It’s all perfect… and so are you!

What a blind person needs is not a teacher but another self.

I am worrying about my country. I feel I have a responsibility as a novelist to do something.

Communists have always played an active role in the fight by colonial countries for their freedom, because the short-term objects of Communism would always correspond with the long-term objects of freedom movements.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.

The most common criticism I get is that I’m being manipulated and you shouldn’t use children in political ways, because that is abuse, and I can’t think for myself and so on. And I think that is so annoying! I’m also allowed to have a say – why shouldn’t I be able to form my own opinion and try to change people’s minds?

I think a lot of people love to convolute what everyone else does in order to disempower women.

The more successful I become, the more I need a man.

We have to wake up. We have to refuse to be a clone.

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.

I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can’t be done.

I was a proponent of the ERA. The women of my generation and my daughter’s generation, they were very active in moving along the social change that would result in equal citizenship stature for men and women.

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.

I think women want freedom. They want to be empowered. They want hope. They want love; they want all the things that I want, and I’m not afraid to say those things and act on them, and I think that’s why they identify with me.

You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lines. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I’ll rise.

A gender line… helps to keep women not on a pedestal, but in a cage.

The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.

Remember: your bosses prefer to keep you in dependent positions. It is in their interest that you do not become self-reliant, and so they will tend to hoard information. You must secretly work against this and seize this information for yourself.

A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.

Give a boy address and accomplishments and you give him the mastery of palaces and fortunes where he goes.

I don’t think there is a single social issue I haven’t spoken on.

If an injustice requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the government machine.

Most people who ask for advice from others have already resolved to act as it pleases them.

I do not deny that I planned sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation and oppression of my people by the whites.

I think my message to the politicians who have within their power the ability to make change is, ‚Do you really, really not care about the future of your great-grandchildren? Because if we let the world continue to be destroyed the way we are now, what’s the world going to be like for your great-grandchildren?‘

Her body calculated to a millimeter to suggest a bud yet guarantee a flower.

Only you can control your future.

I want to appeal to everyone. Because I’m not saying I’m the best, but we the best.

It’s an endless proving of myself, that I really am a musician, that I have something to offer in the room. That women can be musicians, women can be rock stars, women can be more than an objectified idea of a pop star.

The PC has improved the world in just about every area you can think of. Amazing developments in communications, collaboration and efficiencies. New kinds of entertainment and social media. Access to information and the ability to give a voice people who would never have been heard.

The best luck of all is the luck you make for yourself.

People have this capacity within them to set the world straight.

I found it hard to be young. When I was married in my twenties, I hated being regarded as ‚the little wife.‘ You don’t know what it was like then! I’d never even written a cheque. I had to ask my husband for money for groceries.

Our lives are a sum total of the choices we have made.

We are all of us stars, and we deserve to twinkle.

So people are talking about revolution. What a revolution it would be to have a woman president.

The world around me has changed, and I have learned to adapt but not change. But I’m changing into the woman I am meant to be.

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.

June Jordan, who died of cancer in 2002, was a brilliant, fierce, radical, and frequently furious poet. We were friends for thirty years. Not once in that time did she step back from what was transpiring politically and morally in the world. She spoke up, and led her students, whom she adored, to do the same.

Don’t grow accustomed to living with less, doing less, and being less to the point that you eventually sit back and accept it.

I came up from a difficult background.

A smart girl leaves before she is left.

I think if we go back and check our record, the Negro has proven beyond a doubt that we have been more than patient in seeking our rights as American citizens.

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.

Encouragement to all women is – let us try to offer help before we have to offer therapy. That is to say, let’s see if we can’t prevent being ill by trying to offer a love of prevention before illness.

Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.

I think all women go through periods where we hate this about ourselves, we don’t like that. It’s great to get to a place where you dismiss anything you’re worried about. I find flaws attractive. I find scars attractive.

He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.

Not one person can make or break what I’m doing, except me or God.

My goal is just to be respected as a man when I walk down the street with my family. I don’t care what your job is, you’re not gonna talk down to me, you’re not gonna try to get a rise out of me. I’m a man first. And in establishing that, some interesting things have happened.

It’s better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life.

I stand for anti-bigotry, anti-Semitism, and anti-racism.

The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.

I think life is a matter of choices and that wherever we are, good or bad, is because of choices we make.