SEATTLE — Let’s face it – being an activist and advocate is hard work. The news and skeptics around us serve as constant reminders of how difficult it may be to make progress in the realms of global poverty and human rights.
However, it doesn’t make that fight any less worthwhile. Here are ten quotes on the importance of activism and global citizenship:
- “I’ve always thought that you don’t love a country by turning a blind eye to its crimes and to a problem. The way that you love a country is by seeing everything that it’s done wrong, all of its mistakes, and still thinking that it’s beautiful and that it’s worthy.” Junot Diaz, professor at MIT and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
- “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of man against forgetting.” From Franco-Czech author Milan Kundera’s novel “The Book of Laughter and Forgetting”
- “Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the Universe or be crushed by it. You must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors.” From activist Andrew Boyd’s “Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe”
- “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” From Aesop’s “The Lion and the Mouse” fable
- “There are seven things that will destroy us: Wealth without work; Pleasure without conscience; Knowledge without character; Religion without sacrifice; Politics without principle; Science without humanity; Business without ethics.” Mahatma Gandhi
- “A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars, it’s where the rich use public transportation” Former mayor of Bogota, Colombia, Enrique Penalosa
- “I want there to be a place in the world where people can engage in one another’s differences in a way that is redemptive, full of hope and possibility.” From social activist bell hooks’ book, “Reel to Real: Race, Sex, and Class at the Movies”
- “No one is born a good citizen; no nation is born a democracy. Rather, both are processes that continue to evolve over a lifetime. Young people must be included from birth. A society that cuts off from its youth severs its lifeline.” Former U.N. Secretary General and Ghanaian diplomat Kofi Annan
- “A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.” Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen
- “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead
As we continue our work as activists and advocates, it’s important to remember that this work can only be completed with good motivation and hope. To reference Socrates, we are not citizens of just our hometowns or nations, “but of the world.”
– Priscilla McCelvey
Sources: Do One Thing, George Washington University, Goodreads, Leadership Now, Mind Nature Society, New York Times, NLCATP, Quotery
Photo: Flickr