Cesar Chavez Quotes

I have great respect for people who are in the front lines and the trenches of trying to enact social change. I am far lazier than that.

If the government or the parties won't address our needs, we will. It's about direct action, even civil disobedience.

I think direct political action, civil disobedience, in particular, is something to be taken very seriously.

Even if it doesn't work, there is something healthy and invigorating about direct action

Heed this cry that comes from the hearts of men. Organize the Unorganized.

If you athletes boycott the Olympics, it will be like a rock dropping in the water. The ripples and waves will be felt all over. You can be that rock. No one will die and that is the way to fight.

We are on the threshold of a significant breakthrough, and the greatest weapon is the mass demonstration.

The picket line is the best place to train organizers. One day on the picket line is where a man makes his commitment. The longer on the picket line, the stronger the commitment. A lot of workers think they make their commitment by walking off the job when nobody sees them. But you get a guy to walk off the field when his boss is watching and, in front of the other guys, throw down his tools and march right to the picket line, that is the guy who makes our strike. The picket line is a beautiful thing because it makes a man more human.

A boycott is the most peaceful and passive kind of protest there is and can be. We do not say we hate you or even say that you are wrong. We just say that we don’t want to ride your bus.

People have to carry on with their lives, so only so much direct action can take place. Anti-nuclear activism may look dormant from appearances, but it’s there, like magma. It’s still brewing, and the next trigger might be another big protest or political change,

I want to see young people in America feel the spirit of the 1960s and find a way to get in the way. To find a way to get in trouble. Good trouble, necessary trouble.

I don't even really see sit-ins and marches as passive. I see them as quite assertive. I see those as emotionally aggressive tactics. I see people putting their lives on the line and being bold and brave.

Different people were complaining, and I remember saying, 'Why don't we just demonstrate?' The Whitney was the first.

Let the grassroots turn on the hate because that's the only thing that will make them do their duty.

'Boycott caused all the trouble,' they say, as if I could have canvassed all those people personally to take a stand in 1983. Nonsense! The committee were the ones with the power to make the decisions, not me. They started the unrest, they did the sackings, and they reaped what they sowed.

If you actually want to change your world, there is a better way of doing it than blowing yourself up.

My movement is 'Rose Army.'

I think there's a weapon of cynicism to say, 'Protest doesn't work. Organizing doesn't work. Y'all are a bunch of hippies. You know, it doesn't do anything,' because, frankly, it's said out of fear, because it is a potent force for political change.

You don't need role models to be part of a social movement as long as you care about the issues.

When I think about protest, I worry so much that people think about it only as standing in the streets. And I say that as someone who has been standing in the streets of cities across the country - but at the root of it is this idea of telling the truth in public.

I am not naive enough to believe that voting is the only way to bring about transformational change, just as I know that protest alone is not the sole solution to the challenges we face.

Each of us should choose which course of action we must take; education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes, but let it not be said that we did nothing.

Non-co-operation means nothing less than training in self-sacrifice.

When a man or woman, young, or old, takes a place on the picket line for even a day or two, he will never be the same again.

Mass civil disobedience can use rage as a constructive and creative force.