Voting Rights Quotes

The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by human beings for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison people because they are different from others.

President Lyndon B. Johnson


The ballot is stronger than the bullet.

Abraham Lincoln


 My vote is my voice…and the voice of all who struggled, so that I may have my voice.

Lydia Obasi


Voting is the foundation stone of political action.

Martin Luther King


The right to vote is the crown jewel of American liberties, and we will not see its luster diminished.

Ronald Reagan


A system cannot fail those it was never intended to protect.

W.E.B Dubois


Freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. I don’t believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.

Coretta Scott King


It doesn’t matter how strong your opinions are. If you don’t use your power for positive change, you are indeed part of the problem.

              Coretta Scott King


We must learn to live together as brothers and sisters or we will perish together as fools.

Martin Luther King


I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed.

Martin Luther King


There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.

Martin Luther King


I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Martin Luther King


The time is always right to do what is right

Martin Luther King


Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

Martin Luther King


One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.

Martin Luther King


Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Martin Luther King


Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

Martin Luther King


The ultimate measure of a person is not where he or she stands in moments comfort and convenience, but where he or she stands in times of challenge and controversy.

Martin Luther King


The only normalcy that we will settle for is the normalcy of brotherhood, the normalcy of true peace, the normalcy of justice.

Martin Luther King


An individual has not started living until he or she can rise above the narrow confines of his or her individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

Martin Luther King


When we look at modern human beings we have to face the fact that we suffer from a kind of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast with a scientific and technological abundance. We’ve learned to fly the air as birds, we’ve learned to swim the seas as fish, yet we haven’t learned to walk the Earth as brothers and sisters.

Martin Luther King


Almost always the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.

Martin Luther King


The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.

Martin Luther King


People who passively accept evil are much more involved in it as people who help perpetrate it. They who accept evil without protesting against it are really cooperating with it.

Martin Luther King


The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

Martin Luther King


Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves.

Abraham Lincoln


Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as understand it.

Abraham Lincoln


My concern is not whether God is on my side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.

Abraham Lincoln


Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

Abraham Lincoln


I speak not for myself but for those without voice.

Malala Mousafzai


We realize the value of our voice when we are silenced.

Malala Mousafzai


When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.

Malala Mousafzai


To be free, is not merely to cast off one’s own chains but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

Nelson Mandela


None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We got here because somebody – a parent, a teacher, an Ivy League crony or a few nuns – bent down and helped us pick up our boots.

Thurgood Marshall


In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute.

Thurgood Marshall


We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the fear, the hatred and mistrust…We must dissent because America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better.

Thurgood Marshall


It’s always been a mystery to me how people can respect themselves when they humiliate others.

Mohandas Gandhi


A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.

Mohandas Gandhi


Justice grows out of recognition of ourselves in each other — that my liberty depends on you being free too.

Barack Obama


You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right.

Rosa Parks


Stand for something or you will fall for anything.

Rosa Parks


Even when they call us mad, when they call us subversives and communists and all the epithets they put on us, we know we only preach the subversive witness of the Beatitudes, which have turned everything upside down.

Archbishop Oscar Romero


A church that doesn’t provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed – what gospel is that?

Archbishop Oscar Romero


When we struggle for human rights, for freedom, for dignity, when we feel that it is a ministry of the church to concern itself for those who are hungry, for those who have no schools, for those who are deprived, we are not departing from God’s promise. He comes to free us from sin, and the church knows that sin’s consequences are all such injustices and abuses. The church knows it is saving the world when it undertakes to speak also of such things.

Archbishop Oscar Romero


On only one occasion does the Hebrew bible command us to love our neighbor, but in 37 places commands us to love the stranger. The stranger is one we are taught to love precisely because he is not like ourselves.

Dr. Jonathan Sacks


If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu


Real leaders are not blinded by the trappings of power but recognize their role as servant.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu


My humanity is bound up in yours for we can only be human together.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu


When we see others as the enemy, we risk becoming what we hate. When we oppress others, we end up oppressing ourselves. All of our humanity is dependent upon recognizing the humanity in others.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu


My father used to say, don’t raise your voice, improve your argument.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu


There are two ways of exerting one’s strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.

Booker T. Washington