clipped from linkglobal.org 
Inspiration
"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. The Talmud tells us that by saving a single human being, man can save the world. We may be powerless to open all the jails and free all the prisoners, but by declaring our solidarity with one prisoner, we indict all jailers. None of us is in a position to eliminate war, but it is our obligation to denounce it and expose it in all its hideousness. War leaves no victors, only victims."
-- Elie Wiesel
"We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. 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.
There is so much to be done, there is so much that can be done. One person - a Raoul Wallenberg, an Albert Schweitzer, Martin Luther King, Jr. - one person of integrity, can make a difference, a difference of life and death.
As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our life will be filled with anguish and shame. What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs.
Our lives no longer belong to us alone; they belong to all those who need us desperately."
-- Elie Wiesel
"We have too many high-sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them."
-- Abigail Adams
"The probability that we should fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not deter me."
-- Abraham Lincoln
"A country cannot long remain half slave and half free."
-- Abraham Lincoln
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."
-- Aldous Huxley
"Perhaps we cannot make this a world in which children are no longer tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children."
-- Albert Camus
"Many small people who in many small places do many small things can change the world."
-- written on the Berlin Wall
"Whatever career you may choose for yourself - doctor, lawyer, teacher - let me propose an avocation to be pursued along with it. Become a dedicated fighter for civil rights.
Make it a central part of your life. It will make you a better doctor, a better lawyer, a better teacher. It will enrich your spirit as nothing else possibly can. It will give you that rare sense of nobility that can only spring from love and selflessly helping your fellow man. Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the noble struggle for human rights. You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country and a finer world to live in."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Cowardice asks the question: is it safe? Expediency asks the question: is it politic? Vanity asks the question: is it popular? But conscience asks the question: is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular- but one must take it simply because it is right."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
"If you want to be important – wonderful. If you want to be recognized – wonderful. If you want to be great – wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That's a new definition of greatness.
And this morning, the thing that I like about it: by giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. And you can be that servant."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
"I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I'm dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow's bread."
-- Langston Hughes
"Laws just or unjust may govern men's actions. Tyrannies may restrain or regulate their words. The machinery of propaganda may pack their minds with falsehood and deny them truth for many generations of time. But the soul of man thus held in trance or frozen in a long night can be awakened by a spark coming from God knows where and in a moment the whole structure of lies and oppression is on trial for its life."
-- Winston Churchill
"Fear is not the natural state of civilized people."
-- Aung San Suu Kyi
"Now my friends, I am opposed to the system of society in which we live today, not because I lack the natural equipment to do for myself but because I am not satisfied to make myself comfortable knowing that there are thousands of my fellow men who suffer for the barest necessities of life. We were taught under the old ethic that man's business on this earth was to look out for himself. That was the ethic of the jungle; the ethic of the wild beast. Take care of yourself, no matter what may become of your fellow man. Thousands of years ago the question was asked; ''Am I my brother's keeper?'' That question has never yet been answered in a way that is satisfactory to civilized society.
"Yes, I am my brother's keeper. I am under a moral obligation to him that is inspired, not by any maudlin sentimentality but by the higher duty I owe myself. What would you think me if I were capable of seating myself at a table and gorging myself with food and saw about me the children of my fellow beings starving to death."
-- Eugene V. Debs (1908 speech)
"Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of conscience. It does not comfort those who have lost their loved ones in floods caused by senseless deforestation in a neighboring country. Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free."
-- The Dalai Lama
"States are not moral agents, people are, and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions."
-- Noam Chomsky
"All that is needed for the forces of evil to triumph is for enough good men to do nothing."
-- Edmond Burke
"Like me, you could...be unfortunate enough to stumble upon a silent war. The trouble is that once you see it, you can't unsee it.And once you've seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. Either way, you're accountable."
-- Arundhati Roy
"Be the change that you want to see in the world."
-- Gandhi
"First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the communist and I did not speak out - because I was not a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionists. Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak out for me."
-- Pastor Niemoeler (victim of the Nazis)
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world - indeed it is the only thing that ever does."
-- Margaret Meade
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