Rustin Quotes

Each of us are taught in ways both cunning and cruel that we are inadequate, incomplete. And the easiest way to combat that feeling of not being enough is to find someone we consider less than. Less than because they are poorer than us, or because they are darker than us, or because they desire someone our churches and our laws say they should not desire. When we tell ourselves such lies, start to live and believe such lies, we do the work of our oppressors by oppressing ourselves.

You call it trouble. I call it an opportunity.[to Randolph]

We are committed to the cause of altering the trajectory of this country towards freedom. That’s what’s on the line. Nothing less.

They either believe in freedom and justice for all, or they do not.

The time is always right to do right.[quoting Martin Luther King Jr.]

The pacifist is opposed to using violence, but must be prepared to receive it.

Sound is how you turn a crowd into an audience.

No man is less valuable because he picks up trash to care for his own.

Just because you’re smart about some things, doesn’t mean you’re smart about everything.[to Tom]

Inspiration untethered from action loses all value.

If we desire a society of peace, then we cannot achieve such a society through violence.

I can’t surrender my differences. The world won’t let me.