Activist Quotes

We sought justice because equal pay for equal work is an American value. That fight took me ten years. It took me all the way to the Supreme Court. And, in a 5-4 decision, they stood on the side of those who shortchanged my pay, my overtime, and my retirement just because I am a woman.

The Supreme Court told me that I should have filed a complaint within six months of the company's first decision to pay me less even though I didn't know about it for nearly two decades.

The first bill that President Obama signed into law was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. I think it says something about his priorities that the first bill he put his name on has my name on it too. As he said that day with me by his side, 'Making our economy work means making sure it works for ever

Some of you may know my story: How for nineteen years, I worked as a manager for a tire plant in Alabama. And some of you may have lived a similar story: After nearly two decades of hard, proud work, I found out that I was making significantly less money than the men who were doing the same work as

In the end, I didn't get a dime of the money I was shortchanged.

Because women still earn just 77 cents for every dollar men make. Those pennies add up to real money.

I have attended to your request about the armistice.

Mama and Daddy King represent the best in manhood and womanhood, the best in a marriage, the kind of people we are trying to become.

Segregation was wrong when it was forced by white people, and I believe it is still wrong when it is requested by black people.

There is a spirit and a need and a man at the beginning of every great human advance. Every one of these must be right for that particular moment of history, or nothing happens.

I'm fulfilled in what I do. I never thought that a lot of money or fine clothes - the finer things of life - would make you happy. My concept of happiness is to be filled in a spiritual sense.

Women, if the soul of the nation is to be saved, I believe that you must become its soul.

Struggle is a never ending process. Freedom is never really won, you earn it and win it in every generation.

Freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. I don't believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.

I believe all Americans who believe in freedom, tolerance and human rights have a responsibility to oppose bigotry and prejudice based on sexual orientation.

If American women would increase their voting turnout by ten percent, I think we would see an end to all of the budget cuts in programs benefiting women and children.

Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.

Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood.

This could never be a crime in any society which deems himself enlightened.

There's no doubt I expect to die in prison.

Rotten travesty. Yeah. Send me to jail for contempt. Try that. Go ahead.

I have no regrets, none whatsoever.

I don't enjoy good food. I don't enjoy flashy cars. I don't care if I live in a dump. I don't enjoy good clothes. This is the best I've dressed in months.

How can you regret helping a suffering patient?

Fear controls you.

Anytime you interfere with a natural process, you're playing God. God determines what happens naturally. That means when a person's ill, he shouldn't go to a doctor because he's asking for interference with God's will. But of course, patients can't think that way.

A transfer of money should never be involved in this profound situation. Although illness is profound, too, but medicine's a business today. It's a business.

I'd find it demeaning to be cleaning toilets.

I will go to what they call a court. Only they call it a court.

What are friends? Some people are nice. Some people aren't. There are some I'm fairly close with... we talk.