"Together, all things are possible"

"In the final analysis it doesn't really matter what the political system is...We don't need perfect political systems; we need perfect participation."

"Never, never is it possible to reach someone if you become angry or bitter only love and gentleness can do it. Maybe not this time but maybe the next or the hundredth time."

"We must understand that the highest form of freedom carries with it the greatest measure of discipline."

"There's no reason to be non-violent. There's no challenge unless you are living for people."

"You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read."

"Concentration is inspiration. You must be completely overtaken by your work and your subject. Only then do all your influences and experience come up to the surface."

"I've always maintained that it isn't the form that's going to make the difference. It isn't the rule or the procedure or the ideology, but it's human beings that will make it."

"There's no turning back...We will win. We are winning because ours is a revolution of mind and heart..."

"Only when we have become nonviolent towards all life will we have learned to live well with others."

"I am an organizer, not a union leader. A good organizer has to work hard and long. There are no shortcuts. You just keep talking to people, working with them, sharing, exchanging and they come along."

"When the man who feeds the world by toiling in the fields is himself deprived of the basic rights of feeding, sheltering, and caring for his own family, the whole community of man is sick."

"You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore."

"We have seen the future, and the future is ours."

"Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed."

"It's ironic that those who till the soil, cultivate and harvest the fruits, vegetables, and other foods that fill your tables with abundance have nothing left for themselves."

"Being of service is not enough. You must become a servant of the people. When you do, you can demand their commitment in return."

"In giving of yourself, you will discover a whole new life full of meaning and love."

"Non-violence is not inaction. It is not discussion. It is not for the timid or weak... Non-violence is hard work."

"Kindness and compassion toward all living things is the mark of a civilized society."

"Grant me courage to serve others; For in service there is true life."

"The people united will never be defeated."

"True wealth is not measured in money or status or power. It is measured in the legacy we leave behind for those we love and those we inspire."

"To make a great dream come true, the first requirement is a great capacity to dream; the second is persistence."

"As long as we have a poor country bordering California, it's going to be very difficult to win strikes."

"There is no law for farm labor organizing, save the law of the jungle."

"Without a union, the people are always cheated, and they are so innocent."

"Farm workers are society's canaries. Farm workers - and their children - demonstrate the effects of pesticide poisoning before anyone else."

"If you want to remember me, organize!"

"There is no substitute for hard work, 23 or 24 hours a day. And there is no substitute for patience and acceptance."

"Who gets the risks? The risks are given to the consumer, the unsuspecting consumer and the poor work force. And who gets the benefits? The benefits are only for the corporations, for the money makers."

"Who gets the risks? The risks are given to the consumer, the unsuspecting consumer and the poor work force. And who gets the benefits? The benefits are only for the corporations, for the money makers."

"What we do know absolutely is that human lives are worth more than grapes and that innocent-looking grapes on the table may disguise poisonous residues hidden deep inside where washing cannot reach."

"Since the Church is to be servant to the poor, it is our fault if that wealth is not channeled to help the poor in our world."

"In some cases non-violence requires more militancy than violence."

"We learned many years ago that the rich may have money, but the poor have time."

"To be a man is to suffer for others. God help us to be men!"

"When we are really honest with ourselves we must admit our lives are all that really belong to us. So it is how we use our lives that determines the kind of men we are."

"From the depth of need and despair, people can work together, can organize themselves to solve their own problems and fill their own needs with dignity and strength."

"If you really want to make a friend, go to someone's house and eat with him... the people who give you their food give you their heart."

"Though many of the poor have come to see the affluent middle class as its enemy, that class actually stands between the poor and the real powers in this society - the administrative octopus with its head in Washington, the conglomerates, the military complex."

"History will judge societies and governments — and their institutions — not by how big they are or how well they serve the rich and the powerful, but by how effectively they respond to the needs of the poor and the helpless."

"We have suffered unnumbered ills and crimes in the name of the Law of the Land. Our men, women and children have suffered not only the basic brutality of stoop labor, and the most obvious injustices of the system; they have also suffered the desperation of knowing that the system caters to the greed of callous men and not to our needs. Now we will suffer for the purpose of ending the poverty, the misery, and the injustice, with the hope that our children will not be exploited as we have been. They have imposed hungers on us, and now we hunger for justice."

"Our struggle is not easy. Those who oppose our cause are rich and powerful and they have many allies in high places. We are poor. Our allies are few. But we have something the rich do not own. We have our bodies and spirits and the justice of our cause as our weapons."

"We are confident. We have ourselves. We know how to sacrifice. We know how to work. We know how to combat the forces that oppose us. But even more than that, we are true believers in the whole idea of justice. Justice is so much on our side, that that is going to see us through."

"I became a vegetarian after realizing that animals feel afraid, cold, hungry and unhappy like we do. I feel very deeply about vegetarianism and the animal kingdom. It was my dog Boycott who led me to question the right of humans to eat other sentient beings."

"Those who are willing to sacrifice and be of service have very little difficulty with people. They know what they are all about. People can't help but want to be near them. They help them; they work with them. That's what love is all about. It starts with your heart and radiates out."

"It's amazing how people can get so excited about a rocket to the moon and not give a damn about smog, oil leaks, the devastation of the environment with pesticides, hunger, disease. When the poor share some of the power that the affluent now monopolize, we will give a damn."

"I am convinced that the truest act of courage, the strongest act of manliness, is to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally nonviolent struggle for justice. To be a man is to suffer for others. God help us to be men!"

"Until the chance for political participation is there, we who are poor will continue to attack the soft part of the American system - its economic structure. We will build power through boycotts, strikes, new union - whatever techniques we can develop. These attacks on the status quo will come, not because we hate, but because we know America can construct a humane society for all its citizens - and that if it does not, there will chaos."