Advocacy Quotes

The power of your story may not lie in its drama, but in its absolutely perfect relationship to your cause.

Great literature will insist upon its self-sufficiency in the face of the worthiest causes

They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. I took mine and fell flat on my face. As a young woman, I dreamed of changing the world. In my twenties, I went to africa to try and save the continent, only to learn that Africans neither wanted nor needed saving. Indeed, when I was there, I saw some of the worst that good intentions, traditional charity, and aid can produce...I concluded that if I could only nudge the world a little bit, maybe that would be enough.But nudging isn't enough.

Do all the work you while you still have strength.

Be an advocate for the people and causes important to you, using the most powerful tool only you have—your personal stories.

Though either choice was good, one was truer to myself... Ultimately, I reflected on Geothe's invocation to 'make a commitment and the forces of the universe will conspire to make it happen' and chose the uncharted path.

What does it mean to be an advocate?
In its broadest sense, advocacy means “any public action to support and recommend a cause, policy or practice.” That covers a lot of public actions, from displaying
 a bumper sticker to sounding off with a bullhorn. But whether the action is slapping something on the back of a car or speaking in front of millions, every act of advocacy involves making some kind of public statement, one that says, “I support this.” Advocacy is a communicative act. Advocacy is also a persuasive act. “I support this” is usually followed by another statement (sometimes only implied): “...and you should, too.” Advocacy not only means endorsing a cause or idea, but recommending, promoting, defending, or arguing for it.

They want us to be afraid. They want us to be afraid of leaving our homes. They want us to barricade our doors and hide our children. Their aim is to make us fear life itself! They want us to hate. They want us to hate 'the other'. They want us to practice aggression and perfect antagonism. Their aim is to divide us all! They want us to be inhuman. They want us to throw out our kindness. They want us to bury our love and burn our hope. Their aim is to take all our light! They think their bricked walls will separate us. They think their damned bombs will defeat us. They are so ignorant they don’t understand that my soul and your soul are old friends. They are so ignorant they don’t understand that when they cut you I bleed. They are so ignorant they don’t understand that we will never be afraid, we will never hate and we will never be silent for life is ours!

It is time to embrace mental health and substance use/abuse as illnesses. Addiction is a disease.

When it comes to peace, we need to facilitate peace-makers' personal engagement and their genuine desire to bridge the gap between advocacy knowledge and skills necessary to differentiate between theory and practice in the field of conflict management.

We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

Advocating well with a personal story is not a call to simply “Insert Story Here.

Mental illness is not something you misunderstand in this era. Get educated because bias is no different than racism.

He did what good lawyers always do. He shifted his argument in the direction his audience was already going.

There is an overflowing grace, for every great work.

It’s not by story alone that successful advocates urge others to take action. Advocating with our personal stories takes a specific kind of preparation. It requires practice with elements of persuasion, public speaking, media interview skills and storytelling—not to mention healthy does of fortitude and commitment.

It can be difficult to speak truth to power. Circumstances, however, have made doing so increasingly necessary.

Be nice to people... maybe it'll be unappreciated, unreciprocated, or ignored, but spread the love anyway. We rise by lifting others.

There are people that are to champion the campaign and advocacy against the cycle of ungodliness and injustice in every nation.

Now I think that a true liberal will always prioritize individuals over the group, will always prioritize heresy over orthodoxy, will always prioritize the dissenting voice over the status quo.

If he could be hard on kings and cabinets, he was invariably kind to his colleagues.

We are destroying all esthetic standards in the name of social justice.

..things are never as complicated as they seem. It is only our arrogance that prompts us to find unnecessarily complicated answers to simple problems.

Advocacy groups in the USA, as in other countries, may not be able to silence this hateful, cowardly and deceitful attack upon people’s humanity – but they can put out the correct, factual, scientifically and medically accurate information in an attempt to counter the ignorance and to restore the balance.

To say nothing is saying something. You must denounce things you are against or one might believe that you support things you really do not.

I spend half my time comforting the afflicated, and the other half afflicting the comfortable.

The space between the private and the public is the nexus of the personal and the social, if not political. It’s where we meet the strong or subtle cultural censors who attempt to define what community, race, class, or gender can or cannot speak, to tell us which stories are told and valued and which are not. In short, it’s where we’re reminded of the power of personal stories and the power of the storyteller.

Not in My Backyard (NIMBY) does not work. Opiate addicts live in our communities and in our families & they work in our businesses.

Joyfully we undertake our daily work.

It's just as important to be around people that influence stable mental health as it is working towards it.

It is not loving to impose our own grid onto others. We need to understand their situation and their needs accurately, and this comes from listening to them, not coming in with our own assumptions.

The enormity of problems like hunger and social injustice can certainly motivate us to act. We can be convinced logically of the need for intervention and change. But it is the story of one individual that ultimately makes the difference—by offeringliving proof.

Obviously these are some exceptional young people, but what they have in common is that they were ordinary people who cared. They wanted to act, to do something, to make life better for other people—and they have.

You may have come to advocacy on your own, it may be part of your job or you may have been asked to “put a face” on a campaign by serving as its spokesperson. You may be acting as a lone crusader or as part of a larger advocacy effort. Either way, you share an objective with all other advocates: to have your story move audiences from apathy to empathy to action.

We Lesbian Avengers have built this shrine. It stands for our fear. It stands for our grief. It stands for our rage. And it enshrines our intention to live fully and completely as who we are, wherever we are. We take the fire of action into our hearts. And we take it into our bodies. And we stand, here and now, to make it known that we are here, and here we will stay. Our fear does not consume us. Their fire will not consume us. We take that fire, and we make it our own.

Denying the facts is what enables people to hate and to persecute marginalized and threatened minority groups. Labeling the advocacy, educational and informational initiatives of these persecuted minority groups dismissively as 'propaganda for the gay agenda' undermines, belittles and trivializes the cause of those whose right to exist is under threat.

As you become your own advocate and your own steward, your life will beautifully transform.

Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth.

Mom hadn't met Ramon; her advocacy was more arm's length - petitions, the website, letter writing, meetings with politicians. Her friend Hanna had formed a close friendship with Ramon though, visiting him as often as she could. Hanna told me that Ramon's greatest regret was that he wouldn't get to see his daughter grow up.And Jeremy's dad, who had that opportunity, was just throwing it away.It made me furious, and I couldn't let it go.