Bayard Rustin

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress."

"We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny."

"I must say that I am not afraid. I was not born to be afraid; I was born to be free."

"The function of a citizen and a lawyer must be independent, dedicated to the truth and to justice."

"I think we make a terrible mistake to suppose that the civil rights movement was just a black phenomenon."

"Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it."

"Young people are the most creative, the most destruction-oriented, and the most powerful force that we have available to us today."

"It seems to me that the first place where change has to take place is in our hearts and our minds."

"Learn to accept reality without losing your idealism."

"We are challenged to live out the true meaning of our creed."

"The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might do you a greater one."

"I believe that freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be."

"There is no way to build the labor movement without individuals who can do the work."

"We need in every community a group of angelic troublemakers."

"The most important thing I have to say to you today is that homosexuality is not a sin."

"I have tried never to lose sight of my friends and family in the pursuit of happiness."

"Until the killing of black men, black mothers' sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as it is to us, we will keep losing black men."

"We cannot expect people to have respect for law and order unless we teach respect to those we arrest."

"The problem that I have had to struggle with is that the civil rights movement was not broad enough."

"I think it is quite clear that if we want to work for our freedom, we have to do it ourselves."

"The role of the intellectual is to speak the truth and expose lies."

"In order to have a future that we can believe in, we must build a foundation based on respect for human life."

"To be gay is to be capable of love and loyalty."

"Any Negro who is thinking about this problem cannot help but realize that we cannot seek to solve the problem of racial discrimination by creating another form of discrimination."

"Do not tell me the struggle doesn't put you at risk. I can show you by the score men and women who have been put on their ass for their work."

"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy."

"We are all one people. When one group suffers, we all suffer."

"I have learned that any group must have some form of power if it is to make itself felt in this country."

"The principal reality of my life has been loneliness."

"If we desire a lasting peace, we must make truth our foundation."