Activists From The United States

"The worker must work for the glory of his handiwork, not simply for pay; the thinker must think for truth, not for fame."

"The function of the university is not simply to teach bread-winning, or to furnish teachers for the public schools or to be a centre of polite society; it is, above all, to be the organ of that fine adjustment between real life and the growing knowledge of life, an adjustment which forms the secret of civilization."

"And yet this very singleness of vision and thorough oneness with his age is a mark of the successful man. It is as though Nature needs must make men narrow in order to give them force."

"To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships."

"The Soviet Union does not allow any church of any kind to interfere with education, and religion is not taught in public schools. It seems to me that this is the greatest gift of the Russian Revolution to the modern world. Most educated modern men no longer believe in religious dogma. If questioned they will usually resort to double-talk before admitting the fact. But who today actually believes that this world is ruled and directed by a benevolent person of great power who, on humble appeal, will change the course of events at our request? Who believes in miracles? Many folk follow religious ceremonies and services and allow their children to learn fairy tales and so-called religious truth, which in time the children come to recognize as conventional lies told by their parents and teachers for the children's good. One can hardly exaggerate the moral disaster of the custom. We have to thank the Soviet Union for the courage to stop it."

"The most ordinary Negro is a distinct gentleman, but it takes extraordinary training and opportunity to make the average white man anything but a hog."

"Believe in life! Always human beings will progress to greater, broader, and fuller life."

"In my own country for nearly a century I have been nothing but a nigger."

"The return from your work must be the satisfaction which that work brings you and the world's need of that work. With this, life is heaven, or as near heaven as you can get. Without this — with work which you despise, which bores you, and which the world does not need — this life is hell."

"How shall Integrity face Oppression? What shall Honesty do in the face of Deception, Decency in the face of Insult, Self-Defense before Blows? How shall Desert and Accomplishment meet Despising, Detraction, and Lies? What shall Virtue do to meet Brute Force? There are so many answers and so contradictory; and such differences for those on the one hand who meet questions similar to this once a year or once a decade, and those who face them hourly and daily."

"Joseph Stalin was a great man; few other men of the 20th century approach his stature. He was simple, calm and courageous. He seldom lost his poise; pondered his problems slowly, made his decisions clearly and firmly; never yielded to ostentation nor coyly refrained from holding his rightful place with dignity. He was the son of a serf but stood calmly before the great without hesitation or nerves. But also — and this was the highest proof of his greatness — he knew the common man, felt his problems, followed his fate."

"By sheer will and grit, arising out of this, amid the derision and disdain of the world, Hitler has become the greatest figure of the Twentieth Century and in all probability will be the arbiter of the future patterns of human civilization."

"There has been no tragedy in modern times equal in its awful effects to the fight on the Jew in Germany. It is an attack on civilization, comparable only to such horrors as the Spanish Inquisition and the African slave trade. It has set civilization back a hundred years, and in particular has it made the settlement and understanding of race problems more difficult and more doubtful. It is widely believed by many that the Jewish problem in Germany was episodic, and is already passing. Visitor to the Olympic Games are apt to have gotten that impression. They saw no Jewish oppression. Just as Northern visitors to Mississippi see no Negro oppression."

"Hitler set up a tyranny: a state with a mighty police force, a growing army, a host of spies and informers, a secret espionage, backed by swift and cruel punishment, which migh vary from loss of job to imprisonment, incommunicado and without trial, to cold murder."

"It is ridiculous to seek to excuse Robert Lee as the most formidable agency this nation ever raised to make 4 million human beings goods instead of men. Either he knew what slavery meant when he helped maim and murder thousands in its defense, or he did not. If he did not he was a fool. If he did, Robert Lee was a traitor and a rebel–not indeed to his country, but to humanity and humanity’s God."

"The cause of war is preparation for war."

"I do not laugh. I am quite straight-faced as I ask soberly: "But what on earth is whiteness that one should so desire it?" Then always, somehow, some way, silently but clearly, I am given to understand that whiteness is the ownership of the earth forever and ever, Amen! Now what is the effect on a man or a nation when it comes passionately to believe such an extraordinary dictum as this? That nations are coming to believe it is manifest daily. Wave on wave, each with increasing virulence, is dashing this new religion of whiteness on the shores of our time. Its first effects are funny: the strut of the Southerner, the arrogance of the Englishman amuck, the whoop of the hoodlum who vicariously leads your mob."

"I believe that there are human stocks with whom it is physically unwise to intermarry, but to think that these stocks are all colored or that there are no such white stocks is unscientific and false."

"Liberty trains for liberty. Responsibility is the first step in responsibility."

"The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression."

"The school system in the country districts of the South is a disgrace and in few towns and cities are Negro schools what they ought to be. We want the national government to step in and wipe out illiteracy in the South. Either the United States will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States. And when we call for education we mean real education. We believe in work. We ourselves are workers, but work is not necessarily education. Education is the development of power and ideal. We want our children trained as intelligent human beings should be, and we will fight for all time against any proposal to educate black boys and girls simply as servants and underlings, or simply for the use of other people. They have a right to know, to think, to aspire. These are some of the chief things which we want. How shall we get them? By voting where we may vote, by persistent, unceasing agitation; by hammering at the truth, by sacrifice and work. We do not believe in violence, neither in the despised violence of the raid nor the lauded violence of the soldier, nor the barbarous violence of the mob, but we do believe in John Brown, in that incarnate spirit of justice, that hatred of a lie, that willingness to sacrifice money, reputation, and life itself on the altar of right. And here on the scene of John Brown’s martyrdom we reconsecrate ourselves, our honor, our property to the final emancipation of the race which John Brown died to make free. Our enemies, triumphant for the present, are fighting the stars in their courses. Justice and humanity must prevail."

"I insist that the object of all true education is not to make men carpenters, it is to make carpenters men."

"The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line."

"There is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know."

"There is always a certain glamour about the idea of a nation rising up to crush an evil simply because it is wrong. Unfortunately, this can seldom be realized in real life; for the very existence of the evil usually argues a moral weakness in the very place where extraordinary moral strength is called for."

"It has long been the belief of modern men that the history of Europe covers the essential history of civilization, with unimportant exceptions; that the progress of the white [Europeans] has been along the one natural, normal path to the highest possible human culture."

"The men of the Niagara Movement coming from the toil of the year's hard work and pausing a moment from the earning of their daily bread turn toward the nation and again ask in the name of ten million the privilege of a hearing. In the last year the work of the Negro hater has flourished in the land. Step by step the defenders of the rights of American citizens have retreated. The work of stealing the black man's ballot has progressed and the fifty and more representatives of stolen votes still sit in the nation's capital. Discrimination in travel and public accommodation has so spread the some of our weaker brethren are actually afraid to thunder against color discrimination as such and are simply whispering for ordinary decencies."

"I am basically a Clinton Democrat - perhaps more along the lines of how Clinton would have done things as benevolent dictator, or at least with a Dem Congress at his disposal, than how things were run in the 90s, but no flaming progressive."

""In my ideal world, no child would suffer. Charitable instincts would prevail. There would be global acceptance of all different types of people." —Learning To Sing, Page 240"

""I know this is going to sound cheesy and like I'm trying to be Miss America, but the most important responsibility a celebrity has is to set an example and be a role model. I want to make sure that no matter how long I go through this, I don't fall into the trap of changing and modifying how I do things that aren't a positive example. I want to remain somebody that the entire family can listen to or watch." —'Reuters, February 22, 2004."

""Clive [Davis] tried to tell me that saying certain words in a song- or as he says, ‘putting some balls into it'- isn't bad, it's just strong emotion. Well, there are certain words and emotions I don't want kids hearing, and I'm not changing because they think it's going to sell better. This is going to sound horrible, but I got 12 million votes doing what I did." —'Time, 10/5/03 - describing pressure he got from RCA to "edge-up" his songs to boost sales."

""Clay, I think this is the third pop idol, or American idol have done, if you include the english one. Probably one of the best performance I've ever heard through the entire competition. - Simon Cowell on "To Love Somebody" -"

""Clay I think, without a doubt, this performance, that song, is the best performance of the entire competition that I've ever known. Unbelievable, unbelievable. - Paula Abdul on "Unchained Melody" -"

""And Clay, I want to say something to you. I think you are one of the few people I've met throughout this competition who can take criticism like a grown up. Learn, You definitely got better, You've lost some of this facial thing which I think was distracting, and You just did a really grown up, fantastic performance. Congratulation." - Simon Cowell on "Solitaire" -"

"Clay, you sing like Andre Agassi plays tennis, perfection, perfection. And I would kill to write and produce your first CD.""

"And I can honestly say I have never, in all of my life, seen a theatrical groundswell that this kid has motivated, that it makes us all come right back to the bobby sox and Frank. And isn't it nice to live through that magnificence again? Here is Clay Aiken"

"We have someone here today, from the smash hit show American Idol, we're thrilled to have him joining us today, because when it was made known that he would appear on this Telethon, the emails and the fan clubs that this young man has have sent us $30,000.00 just at the fact that he was here."

"I always like the idea that you can turn on the radio and say, 'Oh, that's Clay Aiken. Oh, that's Barbra Streisand. Oh, that's Frank Sinatra, Oh, that's Tony Bennett.' They're a star if you can identify them immediately by their sound. That kid has his own sound. He's got energy. He's got soul. He's got it all. That voice pours out of him."

"What a dear young man.It was like watching magic. Absolute pure song. The boy stopped being there and there was nothing but singing. It was like watching magic...this young man unzipped himself and emerged like a butterfly.He did it so naturally and so beautifully that I think all of our jaws dropped and we thought "wow." Clay Aiken. What a great kid."

"When I review the tape [of the show] the next day, there's lots of screaming and crying,..."hen I recover the same way I do anytime I'm injured: ice, elevation and my Clay Aiken CD."

"To be fair to all, nobody from the show can tell a finalist whether a song choice is good or bad, no matter how much they want to know. Byrd remembers Clay Aiken: He'd say, 'Byrd, if this is a great song choice, blink your left eye."

"It's also our true privilege to present the Robert M. Barg Memorial Achievement Award to Clay. This award is very special to our hearts as it is named after the kindest man that we have ever met, our dad. It's rarely given and only presented to those who share that special brand of kindness and who work hard to truly make a difference in the lives of those in need. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Mr. Clay Aiken."

"One other positive effect of his personal dedication is that as he increases the awareness of children with developmental disabilities and their need for inclusion, he's also created a dedicated and knowledgeable group of child advocates, also known as his fans. I've spoken with many of Clay's fans here, at the Hawaiian Voices for Change Gala, online and through our support of the Florida Voices for Change Gala, and I've got to tell you, they've become true ambassadors for inclusion, driven and knowledgeable in all aspects of inclusion. The bell has rung and Mr. Aiken's classroom is now truly in session across the world."

""I think I've broken three (tha-ree) cameras today!" —Rolling Stone photo shoot"

"In the last ten years, as editor in chief of Today's Caregiver Magazine, I have interviewed many people who are living in the public eye, all of them having something of importance to say to family caregivers. Most times they've become caregivers after becoming famous, usually due to themselves or a family member taking ill. Our keynote speaker today is unique in that he is a professionally trained caregiver before he became known to all of us. And through the unbelievable constraints that have been placed on his time, he's never lost sight of his goal of becoming a teacher and helping children living with developmental disabilities. Only his classroom has become a whole lot larger than he ever expected."

"I think there is a predisposition among Christians that Hollywood is anti-Jesus or anti-Christianity. I was warned I'd have to fight to maintain the freedom to express my beliefs. It's an unfair stereotype, and so far that's been the farthest from the truth. While everyone I work with may not share my beliefs, I have been surrounded by nothing but support." —Clay Aiken - Today's Christian Magazine"

"UNICEF does amazing work. I thought I was a worldly person, and then I started working with them and realized I don’t know as much of my world as I need to. And if I don’t know as much about my world as I need to, then many, many, many people don’t. So I’m thrilled to be in a position to be able to talk about it. And so I’m gonna. —'FLY (online) magazine, November, 2005 issue"

""I'm being trained to shake the bon-bon appropriately.." —'Access Hollywood interview about his JukeBox Tour"

""Service, and the learning that goes with it, fosters citizenship, knowledge, and personal development in everyone, young and old, with disabilities and without. Our partnership with Youth Service America will bring awareness to the fact that youth with disabilities are great assets and can serve as volunteers too." —U.S. Newswire"

"I simply cannot stand by and watch a right guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States come under attack from those who either can't understand it, don't like the sound of it, or find themselves too philosophically squeamish to see why it remains the first among equals: Because it is the right we turn to when all else fails. That's why the Second Amendment is America's first freedom."