William Rehnquist Quotes

If Voting Changed Anything, They’d Abolish It

If people don't vote, everything stays the same. You can protest until the sky turns yellow or the moon turns blue, and it's not going to change anything if you don't vote.

You know, when we get to a point in this country where dissent is extremism, we've turned, I think, a very dark page in our history. And I don't want us to go there. I encourage Americans and I'm - right now, to go to these town hall meetings, to - to talk to your Congressmen, the people that you elected.

Whenever anybody gets involved in politics, its always exciting for me because we take for granted our freedoms and our abilities to effect change through political activism.

Attending that Convention and talking with those people and many others convinced me that I should become a blogger in my efforts to reform the government and uphold the integrity of the Constitution and the laws made in furtherance thereof.

Those who are outraged will vote.

I noticed that democracy was broken and tried to work on fixing that in Japan. Then I realized that it was broken all over the place and decided to work on that too.

From 1965 to 1967, my dad, Jack Gilligan, served in Congress and helped pass landmark laws like the Voting Rights Act.

Together, together, my friends, we have begun a political revolution to transform America, and that revolution, our revolution, continues!

I want to be proud of this country, but when aspects of our policy don't align with my ethics, I want to protest them and try to change them.

We have to become involved in the political process - if we don't like it, we can change it.

Protest is political. It is as political as what our conception of America is.

Democracy is not what we hate the most and what we fear the most. We need to stand up.

Everybody has the right to speak up in a democracy. We would be in trouble as a society if there wasn't a constant pressure to make reforms and to be just. Sometimes as prime minister, when i was caught up in a really loud demonstration, I used to say to myself that I deserved it because of all the demonstrations I myself had organized as a student against Duplessis.

The real truth is, I just want to keep the voice of dissent alive in all of our elections. I don't really want to hang out with politicians.

While living in America when I attended Harvard in the early 1970s, I saw for myself the awesome, almost miraculous, power of a people to change policy through democratic means.

Let's say there are 500 sons and daughters like you in each state. Then we could control the government.

Ours is a country where anything can be accomplished if enough people get angry... because, in America, we act on our collective anger.

I think you have to ask yourself does voting work on the level that you are trying to effectuate change; that is the conversation you must have.

I've got three little kids at home, and I'm trying to save this country from itself. I'm not here to play political power games, and I've had enough of people playing political power games, and this has just gone on too long.

Politics is not perfect but it's the best available nonviolent means of changing how we live.

Therefore, until the day I die, I am going to do what I can, regardless of the cost to me, to try to stop this awful corruption that is destroying our beloved democracy.

I have always believed that on important issues, the leaders must lead. Where the leaders fail to lead, and people are really concerned about it, the people will take the lead and make the leaders follow.

You don't choose a party because it's the flavour of the month. I feel I will be able to work under a political system. I feel if people like me don't enter politics to bring change, who will?

When I turned 18, was the first time that I really started concentrating on politics. And I started doing so because I realized that in order to really create and generate change, it has to come from changing laws... so I started campaigning for Norman Lear's foundation, which was Declare Yourself.