John McDonnell Quotes

Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity.

When you single out any particular group of people for secondary citizenship status, that's a violation of basic human rights.

'Glory' pays tribute to honorable men who faced unimaginable discrimination even as they fought to preserve basic human rights.

I have a big passion about civil rights for everyone - whoever is being downtrodden at the moment, it doesn't matter: racial discrimination or sexual orientation or gender. Whatever it is, I'm there. I think I was a born civil rights activist. I can't stand the smashing of a community. It's not fair and it's not right.

For as long as I can remember, I've always been interested in issues of social justice, political freedom, and civil rights.

Where I come from, if you see your family and friends' civil rights being taken away, you speak up and do everything you can to keep that from happening!

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.

If you care about injustice, and if you care about freedom, and you care about human rights, then you care about them everywhere.

I am a person with leftist convictions, and always have been.

To throw oneself to the side of the oppressed is the only dignified thing to do in life.

I think it is incumbent on all human beings to oppose injustice in every form.

I guess what I'd like to say is that people in Sierra Leone are human beings, just like Americans. They want to send their kids to school; they want to live in peace; they want to have their basic rights of life just like everyone else. I think we all owe an obligation to support people who want to do that.

We also intend to deal with the issue of incorporating basic human rights into our new constitution.

I like movies that resonate, that give voice to the voiceless.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.

No one who passively endures an injustice against himself has the material in him to struggle for the rights of others. The one who patiently forbears becomes an accessory to the injustice done to others. He who resists the injustice which he himself meets can open up the way to a higher right for others.

In any human-rights campaign, everybody must do what they can.

We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

Let's resolve to never be a bystander in the fight for human dignity

The rights of all of us are diminished when the rights of any one of us are threatened.

Freedom is never granted; it is won. Justice is never given; it is exacted.

I want to be the voice and the vision for the poor and the powerless.

We are all Jews now.

Islam does not command us to fight against other religions but against oppression and poverty.

Our protest was a cry for freedom and for civil rights. We had to be seen because we couldn’t be heard.