Speaking Up Quotes

shall I, for fear of feeble man who shall die, hold my peace? Shall I for fear of scoffs and frowns, refrain my tongue? Ah, no!

I have one thing in common with the emerging black nations of Africa: We both have voices, and we are discovering what we can do with them.

Let others know when they have hurt or angered you. By not speaking up when someone insults or mistreats you, you are inadvertently giving permission for him or her to continue to treat you in the same way in the future.

[To the bishop who suggested the widowed queen now consider herself 'as married to Christ':] That's what I call twaddle!

Let's acknowledge the difference between speaking up with intention and speaking up for attention.

My seat has been the seat of kings, and I will have no rascal to succeed me.

So now is the time, more than ever, for those who truly value all the principles of democracy, especially including dissent, to be the most forceful in speaking up, standing up and speaking out.

[To the heckler who said, 'If you were my wife I'd poison you':] No, you wouldn't. I'd do it myself.

There was no one left to speak for me.

I guess just personally I've become a bolder person in my day-to-day. I think a lot of it came from moving to Brooklyn. I just sort of became an adult and started speaking up for myself and not apologising for myself.

Sometimes change comes not in the first round, but at the second, third or fourth. Change starts with one person questioning, challenging, speaking up and doing something to make a difference. We can each make a difference...because each of us is already part of the community where racism exists & thrives.

We talk a lot about our right to freedom of expression, but we need to talk more about our responsibility to freedom of expression. We all want to be heard, but let's acknowledge the difference between speaking up with intention and speaking up for attention

I have often felt like I was the only one fighting against female genital mutilation. There is still a huge taboo surrounding the topic, because it involves the most private parts of the female´s body. But whenever I feel like this is too much for me to do, I read e-mails and messages I receive every day from people thanking me for speaking up for them, for giving them a voice. These messages let me know that I am not alone, and that what I do is worthwhile.

you must cry out if you want help. It is no use whatsoever to suffer in silence. Who will succour the drowning man if he does not clamour for his life?

Don't make it necessary for me to complain about you to Christ crucified. (There is no one else I can complain to, since there is no one greater than you on earth.

[On refusing to be silenced:] I do not pretend to be John the Baptist rebuking the Pharisees. I do not claim to be Nathan upbraiding David. I aspire only to be Balaam's ass, castigating his master.

Calvin: Sometimes when I'm talking, my words can't keep up with my thoughts. I wonder why we can think faster than we speak? Hobbes: Probably so we can think twice.

thinking beings have an urge to speak, speaking beings have an urge to think.

courage isn't simply a matter of leading charges: sometimes it consists in speaking up, sometimes in stoic silence, sometimes in forging ahead, sometimes in circumspection, and sometimes in nothing less than preserving our own humanity.

Wherever you find a wife and mother-in-law slugging it out, you'll find a son who's not speaking up to either his mother or his wife.

In order to create an alternative an oppressed group must at once shatter the self-reflecting world which encircles it and, at the same time, project its own image onto history.

I was raised on the values of speaking up and making a positive difference in a very political family that believed in the importance of public service.

I am glad to see the wheels are moving at last toward comprehensive immigration reform after last year's election. I am glad that immigrants are speaking up.

You can be the outcast or be the backlash of somebody's lack of love. Or you can start speaking up.

More women speaking up and seizing the helm of power can create its own momentum. It can change the culture that helps perpetuate those external forces.