Harvey Milk Quotes

If you are not personally free to be yourself in that most important of all human activities... the expression of love... then life itself loses its meaning.

Rights are won only by those who make their voices heard.

It takes no compromising to give people their rights. It takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no survey to remove repressions.

All young people, regardless of sexual orientation or identity, deserve a safe and supportive environment in which to achieve their full potential.

Freedom is too enormous to be slipped under a closet door.

Every gay person must come out. As difficult as it is, you must tell your immediate family. You must tell your relatives. You must tell your friends if indeed they are your friends. You must tell the people you work with. You must tell the people in the stores you shop in. Once they realize that we are indeed their children, that we are indeed everywhere, every myth, every lie, every innuendo will be destroyed once and all. And once you do, you will feel so much better

Hope will never be silent.

I know that you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. And you...And you...And you...Gotta give em hope.

If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door in the country.

All men are created equal. Now matter how hard they try, they can never erase those words. That is what America is about.

If I turned around every time somebody called me a faggot, I'd be walking backward - and I don't want to walk backward.

Lets make no mistake about this: The American Dream starts with the neigborhoods. If we wish to rebuild our cities, we must first rebuild our neighborhoods. And to do that, we must understand that the quality of life is more important than the standard of living.

We will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets.

It takes no compromise to give people their rights

The fact is that more people have been slaughtered in the name of religion than for any other single reason. That, THAT my friends, is true perversion.

I cannot prevent anyone from getting angry, or mad, or frustrated. I can only hope that they'll turn that anger and frustration and madness into something positive, so that two, three, four, five hundred will step forward, so the gay doctors will come out, the gay lawyers, the gay judges, gay bankers, gay architects I hope that every professional gay will say 'enough', come forward and tell everybody, wear a sign, let the world know. Maybe that will help.

Hope is never silent.

Gay brothers and sisters... You must come out. Come out to your relatives... come out to your friends... Come out to your neighbors... to your fellow workers... to the people who work where you eat and shop... break down the myths, destroy the lies and distortions. For your sake. For their sake. For the sake of the youngsters who are becoming scared.

I finally reached the point where I knew I had to become involved or shut up.

Burst down those closet doors once and for all, and stand up and start to fight.

If we wish to rebuild our cities, we must first rebuild our neighborhoods.

San Francisco can start right now to become number one. We can set examples so that others will follow. We can start overnight. We don't have to wait for budgets to be passed, surveys to be made, political wheelings and dealings ... for it takes no money ... It takes no compromising to give the people their rights. It takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no political deal to give people freedom. It takes no survey to remove repression.

Politics is theater. It doesn't matter if you win. You make a statement. You say, "I'm here, pay attention to me

Every gay person must come out.... Once they realize we are indeed their children, we are indeed everywhere, every myth, every lie, every innuendo will be destroyed once and for all.

I ask for the movement to continue, for the movement to grow, because last week I got a phone call from Altoona, Pennsylvania, and my election gave somebody else, one more person, hope. And after all, that's what this is all about. It's not about personal gain, not about ego, not about power - it's about giving those young people out there in the Altoona, Pennsylvanias, hope. You gotta give them hope.