Mikey Garcia Quotes

I got a degree in sociology, didn't read much fiction in college, and I was a pretty political, left-wing type of guy. I wanted to do some kind of work in social change and make things better for the poor man, and I was very romantic and passionate about it.

I feel it's part of my job to make the problems of the poor compelling.

God has always been hard on the poor.

Without an advocate for the poor, without a new state of mind in America, the country lies on the brink of anarchy.

In a change of masters the poor change nothing except their master's name.

Poor men's reasons are not heard.

I came to poetry through the urgent need to denounce injustice, exploitation, humiliation. I know that's not enough to change the world. But to remain silent would have been a kind of intolerable complicity.

Often, those with the most to lose as a result of a poor policy move are the most vulnerable and most marginalized. Those folks need a voice, and I will endeavor to be that voice.

Books can capture injustices in a way that stays with you and makes you want to do something about them. That's why they are so powerful.

I'm not quite sure precisely when social and political activism became a visible brand of my DNA, but it seems to me that I was born into it. It is hard to be born into the experience in the world of poverty and not develop some instinct for survival and resistance to those things that oppress you.

Oxfam is part of a global movement for social justice. We mainly work to fight for economic and social rights for people without a voice or people who are oppressed.

The endurance of the inequalities of life by the poor is the marvel of human society.

I've always been driven by the concept of equal justice under the law, but only the rich can pay great sums of money for legal assistance and that puts them at an advantage over the poor.

When we see people that are impoverished and people who are dealt an unfair hand, then if we have the power to help them, we should try to do that.

I'd become sort of involved in things that were happening to people. No matter what color they be, whether they be Indians, or Negroes, the poor white person or anyone who was I thought more or less getting a bad shake.

Let the poor man count as his enemy, and his worst enemy, every invader of the right of free discussion.

Awareness in our society has flipped all types of injustice on its head.

I do not believe that the hungry man should be treated as subversive for expressing his suffering.

Criminality is always the result of poverty. Countries that experience such a fundamental change as we have - we had the apartheid regime and must now develop a multicultural democracy - must necessarily pass through a phase of high crime rates.

I believe in the power of media. I really do. It's my soapbox. And I do have an agenda, because I'm enraged by the limitations forced on people - by poverty, oppression, hatred, fear - and I'm saddened by the kind of loss we all experienced due to the contributions that people cannot make because of their circumstances.

I have lectured at the U.N. and travelled widely, giving lectures on human rights and gender inequalities in universities. But this is a life I do not wish to live. I don't want to be a showcase, I want to be in a battlefield where I can stand beside the oppressed and the poor.

You can't just lecture the poor that they shouldn't riot or go to extremes. You have to make the means of legal redress available.

After the war, prompted by the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, I entered Parliament so that a priest could speak out for the poor, as canon law at that time still permitted.

By bringing the voices of the ordinary people faced with extraordinary challenges to television screens around the world, I hope to affect change in one community at a time.

Early in my career, people wanted to hear music about protest, about trying to change things.