Political Activists

"However pure Mr. Gandhi's character may be, he must appear to me from the point of view of religion inferior to any Musalman, even though he be without character... Yes, according to my religion and creed, I do hold an adulterous and a fallen Musalman to be better than Mr. Gandhi."

"But between belief and actual character there is a wide difference. As a follower of Islam I am bound to regard the creed of Islam as superior to that professed by the followers of any non-Islamic religion. And in this sense the creed of even a fallen and degraded Mussalman is entitled to a higher place than that of any other non-Muslim irrespective of his high character even though the person in question be Mahatma Gandhi himself."

"To consider one’s creed as superior to that of every non-Muslim is the duty of a Mussalman."

"I had long been convinced that here in this Country of hundreds of millions of human beings, intensely attached to religion, and yet infinitely split up into communities, sects and denominations, Providence had created for us the mission of solving a unique problem and working out a new synthesis, which was nothing low than a Federation of Faiths … For more than twenty years I have dreamed the dream of a federation, grander, nobler and infinitely more spiritual than the United States of America, and today when many a political Cassandra prophesies a return to the bad old days of Hindu-Muslim dissensions I still dream that old dream of 'United Faiths of India.'"

"A very important factor which is making it almost impossible for Hindu-Muslim unity to become an accomplished fact is that the Muslims can not confine their patriotism to any one country. I had frankly asked (the Muslims) whether in the event of any Mohammedan power invading India, they (Muslims) would stand side by side with their Hindu neighbours to defend their common land. I was not satisfied with the reply I got from them… Even such a man as Mr. Mohammad Ali has declared that under no circumstances is it permissible for any Mohammedan, whatever be his country, to stand against any Mohammedan.""

"I’m not helping? I’m WARNING that if we continue to import Muslims into our country we will have more terrorist attacks, as has been proven time and time again. Can you not see the imminent danger?"

"I am WARNING that if we continue to import Muslims into our country we will have more terrorist attacks, as has been proven time and time again. Take my advice if you want to ensure the safety of your children and a future for our nation’s people. Ignore it, and face death."

"The real cause of bloodshed on New Zealand streets today is the immigration program, which allowed Muslim fanatics to migrate to New Zealand in the first place"

"I’m calling for a ban on all Muslim and black African immigration. I’m also calling for deportations of all migrant criminals along with their families. I think it’s important we put the safety of our nation and it’s citizens first. Time to end endless crime and welfare."

"Inmóvil como un ídolo sagrado, ceñido en mallas de compacto acero, está ante el agua estático y sombrío,'a manera de un príncipe encantado que vive eternamente prisionero en el palacio de cristal de un río."

"Soy el cantor de América autóctono y salvaje: mi lira tiene un alma, mi canto un ideal. Mi verso no se mece colgado de un ramaje con un vaivén pausado de hamaca tropical."

"Government welfare is communism. Free money from the state, whether in terms of benefits, handouts, or non-universal tax-breaks, is a trap that will draw people into socialism and beyond. It’s a lot like cancer."

"Socialism, is in short a manifestation of mental illness or major character deficiency."

"There are many roads to tyranny. “Democratic socialism” is but the subtlest and most benign sounding road to communism."

"No political party should ever be given permanent, unchallenged power."

"What could be crueler than denying someone just starting out in life the chance to work, to learn skills, and to open new horizons? The disastrous results of minimum wage laws are used by enemies of the free market to discredit the free market. Minimum wage laws help no one. They harm the economy, they spread poverty, and they kill dreams. Minimum wage laws are cruel, and they are a fraud on the poor and the disadvantaged. They must be abolished."

"Importantly, socialized medicine is not about health care, it is about control. Are you going to oppose the government or defy bureaucrats when they have the power of veto over your spouse’s or children’s health care?"

"Our environment can best be preserved and enhanced by better protection of property rights in a free-market economy. Private individuals—not socialist governments—are the best stewards of the environment. China and the old Soviet bloc proved that point once and for all."

"The reason that communism is the greatest evil is simple: Communism is the greatest enemy of personal responsibility ever invented. Communism waters down and diminishes personal accomplishments. Once one sees this clearly, seemingly inexplicable communist-driven policies make sense. Every communist policy—from the minimum wage to single-payer health care to rent control—is designed to minimize and thwart personal responsibility. Conversely, individuals who take personal responsibility become leaders, inspiring others to take control of their own lives. Individuals who take personal responsibility for their actions are accountable for their behavior, which results in better relationships with others."

"Communism is a form of organized crime justified by the [worldview] of Marxism–Leninism. It is basically a combination of criminal inclination coupled with uncontrolled political power. Like all crime, communism is parasitic. It produces nothing of value itself; it must rely on force, propaganda, torture, intimidation, threats, and espionage to survive. Like cancer, communism consumes its host. Except that in communism’s case, it will only die when the whole planet is consumed. Must we let things get to that point?"

"In communist terminology “world peace” simply means an absence of resistance to world Marxist-Leninist domination. What would the CPUSA do if the United States got into a full-scale military confrontation with China?"

"Sometimes, you have to almost lose something before you really appreciate what you have."

"One of the most striking things about radical left movements is their ability to cause such great damage with comparatively minuscule numbers of agitators. Many of these individuals and organizations work relentlessly to bring about revolution with little to no scrutiny. ... The communist organizers might pass for a group of friends at a neighborhood barbeque, but their innocent appearance shouldn’t lull citizens into complacency."

"When the early Woman Suffragists took their stand for a redress of the wrongs of women, they used no vague or ambiguous language. As early as 1838 Angelina Grimké and Abby Kelley, who were the first women orators I ever heard, uttered their protest against the wrongs of woman, from an anti-slavery platform. They severely denounced the custom of society which closed the doors of remunerative industries against women, and thereby condemned large numbers to abject dependence and compulsory poverty."

"The widening of women’s sphere is to improve her lot. Let us do it, and if the world scoff, let it scoff — if it sneer, let it sneer — but we will go emulating the example of the sisters Grimké and Abby Kelly. When they first lectured against slavery they were not listened to as respectfully as you listen to us. So the first female physician meets many difficulties, but to the next the path will be made easy."

"The anti-slavery cause had come to break stronger fetters than those that held the slave. The idea of equal rights was in the air. The wail of the slave, his clanking fetters, his utter need, appealed to everybody. Women heard. Angelina and Sarah Grimké and Abby Kelley went out to speak for the slaves. Such a thing had never been heard of. An earthquake shock could hardly have startled the community more. Some of the abolitionists forgot the slave in their efforts to silence the women. The Anti-Slavery Society rent itself in twain over the subject. The Church was moved to its very foundation in opposition."

"Then first she saw that outward forms are no part of Christ’s religion, which she was to be an inward life, – the love of all beings, the wishing and willing of good to all, the law of love, the golden rule, impartial and universal, to be wrought out in loving acts."

"I never saw that great woman, Mary Wollstonecraft, but I l have read her eloquent and unanswerable arguments in behalf of the liberty of womankind. I have met and known most of the progressive women who came after her — Lucretia Mott, the Grimké sisters, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone — a long galaxy of great women. I have heard them speak, saying in only slightly different phrases exactly what I heard these newer advocates of the cause say at these meetings. Those older women have gone on and most of those who work with me in the early years have gone. I am here for a little time only and then my place will be filled as theirs was filled. The fight must not cease; you must see that it does not stop. There have been others also just as true and devoted to the cause — I wish I could name every one — but with such women consecrating their lives, failure is impossible!"

"If this is the last bulwark of freedom, we may as well die here as anywhere."

"Some of her best friends protested [Grimké speaking in mixed gatherings of men and women]. It was not "proper," nor "right," for a woman to attempt to instruct a man. But Angelia Grimke had gone far beyond the point where propriety weighted when it was a question of humanity. She held that "Whatever is morally right for a man to do is morally right for a woman to do. I recognize no rights but human rights.""

"Grudge no expense — yield to no opposition — forget fatigue — till, by the strength of prayer and sacrifice, the spirit of love have overcome."

"I came into the study of history through my work on a biography of Sarah and Angelina Grimké... I was fascinated with the lives and characters of these two women, who had not had a biography written about them since 1885... They spoke to me in a very personal way and I wanted to transmit what I received from these women of another century to readers of my day."

"The time to assert a right is the time when that right is denied."

"I have been suffering for the last two days on account of [my brother] Henry’s boy [slave] having run away, because he was threatened with a whipping … and yet … I am constantly told that the situation of slaves is very good, much better than that of their owners … No wonder poor John ran away at the threat of a flogging, when he has told me more than once that when Henry last whipped him he was in pain for a week afterwards. I don’t know how the boy must have felt, but I know that the night was one of agony for me; for it was dreadful not only to hear the blows, but the oaths and curses Henry uttered went like daggers to my heart. And this was done too, in the house of one who is regarded as a light in the church.... I was directed to go to Henry and tenderly remonstrate with him ...I said that would be treating him worse than he would treat his horse.He now became excited, and replied that he considered his horse no comparison better than John, and would not treat it so … I felt so much overcome as to be compelled to seat myself or rather to fall into a chair before him, but I don’t think he observed this ..."

"The ground upon which you [abolitionists] stand is holy ground; never—never surrender it. If you surrender it, the hope of the slave is extinguished, and the chains of his servitude will be strengthened a hundred fold … But remember you must be willing to suffer the loss of all things – willing to be the scorn and reproach of professor and profane. You must obey our great master’s injunction: “Fear not them that kill the body, and after that, have nothing more that they can do.”"

"But it is said by some, our "books and papers do not speak the truth." Why, then, do they not contradict what we say? They cannot. Moreover, the South has entreated, nay, commanded us, to be silent; and what greater evidence of the truth of our publications could be desired?"

"Women of Philadelphia! Allow me as a Southern woman, with much attachment to the land of my birth, to entreat you to come up to this work. Especially let me urge you to petition. Men may settle this and other questions at the ballot box, but you have no such right. It is only through petitions that you can reach the legislature."

"I know you do not make the laws but I also know that you are the wives and mothers, the sisters and daughters of those who do."

"Confusion has seized us, and all things go wrong:The women have leaped from "their spheres"And instead of fixed stars, shoot as comets along,And are setting the world by the ears!"

"Let us rise in the moral power of womanhood; and give utterance to the voice of outraged mercy, and insulted justice, and eternal truth, and mighty love and holy freedom."

"Human beings have rights, because they are moral beings: the rights of all men grow out of their moral nature; and as all men have the same moral nature, they have essentially the same rights."

"Slavery can only be abolished by raising the character of the people who compose the nation; and that can be done only by showing them a higher one."

"Men who hold the rod over slaves rule in the councils of the nation; and they deny our right to petition and remonstrate against abuses of our sex and our kind."

"In a republican land the power behind the throne is the power. Save yourself the trouble of calling caucuses, printing party journals, distributing ballots, and the like. Let men who are fit for nothing of more consequence do this little work, which is best done by mere nobodies … Don’t drag the engine, like an ignoramus, but bring wood and water and flame, like an engineer."

"Let the zeal and love, the faith and works of our English sisters quicken ours; that while the slaves continue to suffer, and when they shout deliverance, we may feel the satisfaction of having done what we could."

"It was remarked in England that women did much to abolish slavery in her colonies. Nor are they now idle."

"If the arm of the North had not caused the Bastille of slavery to totter to its foundation, you would not hear those cries. A few years ago, and the South felt secure, and with a contemptuous sneer asked, "Who are the abolitionists? The abolitionists are nothing?""

"How wonderfully constituted is the human mind! How it resists, as long as it can, all efforts to reclaim it from error! I feel that all this disturbance is but an evidence that our efforts are the best that could have been adopted, or else the friends of slavery would not care for what we say and do. The South knows what we do. I am thankful that they are reached by our efforts. Many times have I wept in the land of my birth over the system of slavery. I knew of none who sympathized in my feelings; I was unaware that any efforts were made to deliver the oppressed; no voice in the wilderness was heard calling on the people to repent and do works meet for repentance, and my heart sickened within me. Oh, how should I have rejoiced to know that such efforts as these were being made."

"Many persons go to the South for a season, and are hospitably entertained in the parlor and at the table of the slaveholder. They never enter the huts of the slaves; they know nothing of the dark side of the picture, and they return home with praises on their lips of the generous character of those with whom they had tarried. Or if they have witnessed the cruelties of slavery, by remaining silent spectator they have naturally become callous-an insensibility has ensued which prepares them to apologize even for barbarity. Nothing but the corrupting influence of slavery on the hearts of the Northern people can induce them to apologize for it; and much will have been done for the destruction of Southern slavery when we have so reformed the North that no one here will be willing to risk his reputation by advocating or even excusing the holding of men as property."

"I fled to the land of Penn; for here, thought I, sympathy for the slave will surely be found. But I found it not. The people were kind and hospitable, but the slave had no place in their thoughts."