Jacqueline Novogratz Quotes

Men feel that cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is an injustice to equals; nay it is treachery to comrades.

I'm not a member of a minority but I can empathize with what's going on.

Homeboy Industries has chosen to stand with the 'demonized' so that the demonizing will stop; it stands with the 'disposable' so that the day will come when we stop throwing people away.

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.

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

There is also a natural and very, very strong empathy with the underdog, with people who have suffered, people who have been pushed around by foreigners in particular, but also by their own people.

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.

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.

Love and trust and justice, concern for the poor, that's being pushed to the margins, and you can see it.

Oppression costs the oppressor too much if the oppressed stand up and protest.

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

While there is a lower class, I am in it. While there is a criminal element, I am of it. And while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

I will always be on the side of those who have nothing.

I was functioning in a time when people were struggling, and they knew they had to struggle, and I was a part of that struggle. It wasn't just women.

I value what I learned from being cast in the margins and what that felt like.

I've never seen myself as a second-class citizen.

I'm definitely drawn to stories about outsiders. Feeling like that myself as a gay black man, I often seek to give a voice to those in the world who don't have one.

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.

I know we have to have people of good conscience who stand up against oppression. I know we have to have people who understand that social justice belongs to us all. And that wakes me up every morning, and that makes me fight even harder.

The Negro does not want love. He wants justice . . . I believe it would be better for the Negro's soul to be seared with hate than dwarfed by self-abasement.

You can only watch injustice go on for so long until you're compelled to say something. To speak out against it.

I grew up with injustice and could do nothing about it. But once in America, I had freedom of choice.

I'm trying to appeal to the disenfranchised everybody, not just specifically gay.

I didn't want to be discriminated against because of my gender and status. I promised myself I was never going to be treated as a second-class citizen.