"To spend one's life being angry, and in the process doing nothing to change it, is to me ridiculous. I could be mad all day long, but if I'm not doing a damn thing, what difference does it make?" "
— Charles Fuller

"I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; — but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD."
— William Lloyd Garrison

"Women are never afraid. No matter what the Chinese do. Women do what the Chinese don't want them to do, like chant and shout slogans. In prison, the guards could punish us, they could beat us, but we still shouted slogans. We never stayed quiet, we wanted to say more. We wanted to do it again. Our mouths got bigger! We became more determined."
— Sonam Choedron (Sky Train: Tibetan Women on the Edge of History)

"So exiled have even basic questions of freedom become from the political vocabulary that they sound musty and ridiculous, and vulnerable to the ultimate badge of shame-'That's so 60's!'-the entire decade having been mocked so effectively that social protest seems outlandish and 'so last century,' just another style excess like love beads and Nehru jackets. No, rebellion won't pose a problem for this social order."
— Laura Kipnis (Against Love: A Polemic)