"If I believe in something, I'm willing to accept the flak, because some of us have got to sacrifice what may be popular for what is right. And it will soon be popular. But even if it isn't, it's still right."

Rev. Al Sharpton re combatting homophobia among African-Americans

"A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth."

- Martin Luther King Jr., in his speech "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence"

More Quotes

"How could I have been anyone other than me?"
-- South African rock star, guitarist and vocalist Dave Matthews

"And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight in the bud was more
painful than the risk it took to blossom."
-- American author of Spanish, Cuban, French and Danish descent Anais Nin

"Don't you ever wish
You were someone else
You were meant to be
The way you are exactly

Don't you ever say
You don't like the way you are
When you learn to love yourself
You're better off by far

And I hope you always stay the same
Cause there's nothing 'bout you I would change"
-- Joey McIntyre, "Stay the Same" from the 1999 CD of the same name

"How could anyone ever tell you, you were anything less than beautiful
How could anyone ever tell you, you were less than whole
How could anyone fail to notice that your loving is a miracle
How deeply you're connected to my soul."
-- Libby Roderick, "How Could Anyone (ever tell you, you were anything less
than beautiful?)" from the CD If You See a Dream

"...but here am I;
Once a caterpillar, now a butterfly."
-- Pet Shop Boys, "Metamorphosis"

"I don't think that [the issue of] sexuality and disability is controversial because of genitals. I don't even think it's controversial so much because of pregnancy. The major reason it's controversial is that it would force a massive reevaluation of who disabled people are."
-- Dave Hingsburger

"I have said to you to speak the truth is a painful thing. To be forced to tell lies is much worse. "
-- Oscar Wilde, De Profundis

"From an early age, we're taught not only bigotry but also to feel helpless and hopeless when confronted with it, as if it is a force of nature--like gravity--that we cannot control. This is the lesson we must unlearn. We must break free of the mindset that tells us we have to accept injustice, intolerance, and bigotry..."
-- Kevin Jennings, from "Learning to Swim Upstream"

"The most exciting thing is not doing it. If you fall in love with someone and never do it, it's much more exciting."
-- Andy Warhol

"Can I tell you guys something?" Joe says. "Will you promise not to laugh at me or say it's gross?"
"Promise," I say, and Skeezie goes, "Pinky swear," and smiles.
"You know what I want more than anything?"
I am guessing by the way he takes a deep breath that the answer to this is not to be found in any of Joe's usual wish-list categories, such as home decor or celebrities-I'd-most-like-to-be-stuck-on-a-desert-island-with.
"I think about this a lot, but I've never told anybody. Not Aunt Pam or anybody. What I want more than anything is to hold hands with somebody I like."
Joe pulls his knees up then, sharp, and crosses his arms over them, so he can lay down his head, like now that he's told us this terrible secret he doesn't want to see our faces telling him what we think.
"Does that gross you out?" he asks from inside his folded-up arms.
"No," I go, and so does Skeeze.
"If that's how you feel, then you should just go for it, man," says Skeezie, getting all serious. "I mean, you're a pretty outrageous character, JoDan. I never seen you exactly lacking for nerve."
Joe lifts his head. "Right. Can you see me walking down the hall holding hands with Colin the way Brittney holds hands with Will, or Sara with Justin? Not that I'm saying Colin would want to or anything, but it's not fair."
-- James Howe, The Misfits, pp. 121-2

Lives in the Balance

LIVES IN THE BALANCE
By Jackson Brown

I've been waiting for something to happen
For a week or a month or a year
With the blood in the ink of the headlines
And the sound of the crowd in my ear

You might ask what it takes to remember
When you know that you've seen it before
Where a government lies to a people
And a country is drifting to war

And there's a shadow on the faces
Of the men who send the guns
To the wars that are fought in places
Where their business interest runs

On the radio talk shows and the T.V.
You hear one thing again and again
How the U.S.A. stands for freedom
And we come to the aid of a friend

But who are the ones that we call our friends--
These governments killing their own?
Or the people who finally can't take any more
And they pick up a gun or a brick or a stone

There are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire
There's a shadow on the faces
Of the men who fan the flames
Of the wars that are fought in places
Where we can't even say the names

They sell us the President the same way
They sell us our clothes and our cars
They sell us every thing from youth to religion
The same time they sell us our wars

I want to know who the men in the shadows are
I want to hear somebody asking them why
They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are
But they're never the ones to fight or to die

And there are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of...Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all."
- Thomas Paine

"I'm the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world, and (it) will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It's painful now."

Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell
Speaking on his 2003 presentation to the UN Security Council on prewar Iraq's alleged WMD programs
September 2005

"It has always been hoped that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki stand as constant reminders of why preventing the further use and proliferation of such weapons – and why nuclear disarmament leading to a nuclear weapon-free world – is of utmost importance for the survival of humankind and planet Earth…Let us renew today ... the promise to the peoples of the world to spare no effort to work collectively to reduce and eliminate nuclear weapons.”

Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency
Remarks made in Vienna in commemoration of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
5 August 200

How, then, did we get here? How did the richest country on Earth end up watching children cry for food in putrid encampments on the evening news? How did reporters reach crowds of the desperate in places where police, troops and emergency responders had not yet been--three days after the storm?
-- Time magazine Sep 14 2005

"We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."
-- Rep. Richard Baker (R-LA)

"His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, 'Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?' And he said, 'Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday.' She drowned Friday night."
- Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard, on Meet the Press

"If we can't respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we're prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?"
- Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich

"Isn't it amazing, how rapidly the Bush White House can move on the news of William Rehnquist's death and elevating John Roberts to be the Chief Justice nominee and yet they find a way to move at a positively glacial pace to drop drinking water and save some lives in New Orleans?"
- Bob Geiger

"Now those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth, and let me remind you they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyranny."
- Barry Goldwater

The worst kind of disinformation, of course, is when you don't know you're being disinformed.

"Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts."
- Rachel Carson

"Members of Congress need to look down at their What Would Jesus Do bracelets... Jesus would not cut food stamps."

-Rev. Douglas Smith, Executive Director of the Virginia Interfaith Center, at a rally outside the office of House Agriculture Committee Chair Bob Goodlatte (R-VA-6) to call for the protection of the Food Stamp program and fairness in agricultural subsidies.

Every wave, regardless of how high and forceful it crests, must eventually collapse within itself.
Stefan Zweig

It would be foolhardy to count on the conscience of the world.
Stefan Zweig