Quotes for the Resistance

Two steps forward and one step back is still one step forward.

Saruman believes that it is only great power that can hold evil in check. But that is not what I have found. I've found it is the small things, everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keeps the darkness at bay. Simple acts of kindness and love.

The state traded white hoods for police uniforms, The cops killed more black people each year than the KKK lynched And you want our marches peaceful, you want us calm, you want us quiet.

In these unsettled and unsettling times, silence is surely just as "political" as non-silence.

The people are rising, and that is the best news I can possibly convey.

Resistance is first of all a matter of principle and a way to live, to make yourself one small republic of unconquered spirit.

Joy doesn't betray but sustains activism.

It's not getting easier, it's just getting regular. It's not becoming normal, it's becoming routine. You don't have to accept any of this, but you also can't give up. It's a lot to ask, but promise me you'll hang on. There are still big, beautiful things ahead.

During the darkest days of the AIDS crisis, we buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced all night. The dance kept us in the fight because it was the dance we were fighting for. It didn't look like we were going to win then and we did. It doesn't feel like we're going to win now but we could. Keep fighting, keep dancing.

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping."

I am in a world of shit... yes. But I am alive and I am not afraid.

Find wherever corruption is. Root it out and let the system do its job. If the system isn't doing its job? Destroy the system.

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -- over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

Nothing in life is to be feared; it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more so that we may fear less.

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.

Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must -- at that moment -- become the center of the universe.

We rise and fall and light from dying embers. Remembrances that hope and love last longer. And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love, cannot be killed or swept aside.