30 Motivational Justice Quotes To Inspire You To Keep Up The Fight
These motivational justice quotes from civil rights leaders show why the fight never stops.
Many critics dismiss Black Lives Matter protests, saying that this anger is hard to sustain in the long run. Activism fatigue may be real, but these motivational justice quotes from civil rights leaders show that passion, righteousness, and more importantly change is not idealistic.
Social justice stems from the continued commitment of individual protesters, but thought leaders and talented orators, essayists, and writers help voice the grief and indignation people feel towards injustice.
Activism fatigue can be hard. Social media plays a crucial role in how protests and civil rights movements mobilize and coalesce; it has broadened activism’s reach.
Injustice no longer concerns just our local community; we hear about it everywhere, expanding out from our city, our state, our country, out into the globe.
So while activism fatigue can feel draining, time and time again protesters have overcome it to push for progress.
Here are 30 motivational justice quotes to inspire you to keep up the fight:
1. “You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.” — Malcolm X
2. “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” ― Ida B. Wells-Barnett
3. “When we revolt it’s not for a particular culture. We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breathe” ― Frantz Fanon
4. “Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.” — Bruce Lee
5. “As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation -- either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.
6. “True peace is not merely the absence of war, it is the presence of justice.” — Jane Addams
7. “Justice is the means by which established injustices are sanctioned.” — Anatole France
8. “Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.”― Toni Morrison
9. "I think the importance of doing activist work is precisely because it allows you to give back and to consider yourself not as a single individual who may have achieved whatever but to be a part of an ongoing historical movement." — Angela Davis
10. “The blessed work of helping the world forward happily does not wait to be done by perfect men.” — George Eliot
11. “Alone, no one wins freedom.” — Ursula K. Le Guin
12. “In any politics worth the name, 'I' can do infinitely less than 'we.'” — Joanna Russ
13. “If you can't raise consciousness, at least raise hell.” — Rita Mae Brown
14. “The future depends entirely on what each of us does every day. After all, a movement is only people moving.” — Gloria Steinem
15. “When a just cause reaches its flood-tide ... whatever stands in the way must fall before its overwhelming power.” — Carrie Chapman Catt
16. “Cultures of resistance are not simply adaptive mechanisms; they embody important alternative ways of organizing production and reproduction and value systems critical of those of the oppressor.” — Mina Davis Caulfield
17. “The human race / Has climbed on protest.” — Ella Wheeler Wilcox
18. “This is an amazing country, for all of its faults. My feeling is, dig in and let's try to change the world. Dissent is not only your right, it's your duty.” — Susan Sarandon
19. “Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.” — Mother Teresa
20. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” — Margaret Mead
21. “When you've written to your president, to your congressman, to your senator and nothing, nothing has come of it, you take to the streets.” — Erica Bouza
22. “You never win freedom permanently. You have to win it time after time ... whether it's union rights, civil rights, or equality for women. We have to keep at it and at it.” — Millie Jeffrey
23. “Life is a hard battle anyway. If we laugh and sing a little as we fight the good fight of freedom, it makes it all go easier. I will not allow my life's light to be determined by the darkness around me.” — Sojourner Truth
24. “The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear” ― Aung San Suu Kyi
25. “For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.” — Audre Lorde
26. “If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.” ― Harvey Milk
27. “Justice is what love sounds like when it speaks in public.” ― Michael Eric Dyson
28. "History isn't something you look back at and say it was inevitable, it happens because people make decisions that are sometimes very impulsive and of the moment, but those moments are cumulative realities." — Marsha P. Johnson
29. “I would want a society and a place to live and be comfortable whereby you didn’t have to look over your shoulder, where you could walk down a dark street and not worry that the boogeyman does exist, real or imagined. Where people were taken care of and looked after.” — Miss Major Griffin-Gracy
30. “It is untrue that bravery can be measured by a lack of fear. It takes guts to tremble. It takes tremble to love.” — Andrea Gibson
Jessica Xing is a writer who covers LGBT issues, books, love, and relationships.