Top 100 Quotes About Cesar Chavez
#1. I really admired Cesar Chavez and Gandhi, but my form of activism would have to be the written word, not the empty stomach. My parents had brought my family t the United States because of the fear of empty stomachs.
Josefina Lopez
#2. The Labor Department's Hall of Honor recognizes men and women - like Cesar Chavez, Helen Keller and the Workers of the Memphis Sanitation Strike - who have made invaluable contributions to the welfare of American workers.
Thomas Perez
#4. We need not only one Cesar Chavez; we need a thousand Cesar Chavezes.
Jorge Ramos
#5. Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot un-educate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.
Cesar Chavez
Address to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Nov. 9, 1984
Cesar Chavez
#6. I grew up in the sixties watching B.B. King and Tito Puente and Miles Davis and Coltrane, everybody, Marvin Gaye, Jimi. And at the same time, with my left eye I was watching Dolores Huerta, Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Mother Teresa.
Carlos Santana
#7. My mother was very involved with Cesar Chavez's work on behalf of the migrant farm workers in California.
Caitlin Flanagan
#8. The strike and the boycott, they have cost us much. What they have not paid us in wages, better working conditions, and new contracts, they have paid us in self-respect and human dignity.
Cesar Chavez
#9. Non-violence exacts a very high price from one who practices it. But once you are able to meet that demand then you can do most things.
Cesar Chavez
#10. To make a great dream come true, the first requirement is a great capacity to dream; the second is persistence.
Cesar Chavez
#11. We have seen the future, and the future is ours.
Cesar Chavez
#12. If we are full of hatred, we can't really do our work. Hatred saps all that strength and energy we need to plan.
Cesar Chavez
#13. When you sacrifice, you force others to sacrifice. It's an extremely powerful weapon.
Cesar Chavez
#14. 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.
Cesar Chavez
#15. To be a man is to suffer for others. God help us to be men!
Cesar Chavez
#16. The fight is never about grapes or lettuce. It is always about people.
Cesar Chavez
#17. Non-violence is not inaction. It is not discussion. It is not for the timid or weak ... Non-violence is hard work.
Cesar Chavez
#18. Because we have suffered, and we are not afraid to suffer in order to survive, we are ready to give up everything - even our lives - in our struggle for justice.
Cesar Chavez
#19. We do not need to kill or destroy to win. We are a movement that builds and not destroys.
Cesar Chavez
#20. Students must have initiative; they should not be mere imitators. They must learn to think and act for themselves - and be free.
Cesar Chavez
#21. 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.
Cesar Chavez
#22. Real education should consist of drawing the goodness and the best out of our own students. What better books can there be than the book of humanity?
Cesar Chavez
#23. What is at stake is human dignity. If a man is not accorded respect he cannot respect himself and if he does not respect himself, he cannot demand it.
Cesar Chavez
#25. We know we cannot be kind to animals until we stop exploiting them
exploiting animals in the name of science, exploiting animals in the name of sport, exploiting animals in the name of fashion, and yes, exploiting animals in the name of food.
Cesar Chavez
#26. Only when we have become nonviolent towards all life will we have learned to live well with others.
Cesar Chavez
#27. We need to help students and parents cherish and preserve the ethnic and cultural diversity that nourishes and strengthens this community - and this nation.
Cesar Chavez
#28. We need, in a special way, to work twice as hard to help people understand that the animals are fellow creatures, that we must protect them and love them as we love ourselves.
Cesar Chavez
#29. When you have people together who believe in something very strongly - whether it's religion or politics or unions - things happen.
Cesar Chavez
#30. Nonviolence is really tough. You don't practice nonviolence at conferences; you practice it on picket-lines.
Cesar Chavez
#31. 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.
Cesar Chavez
#32. The thing that we have going for us is that people are willing to sacrifice themselves.
Cesar Chavez
#33. When a man or woman, young, or old, takes a place on the picket line for even a day or two, he will never be the same again.
Cesar Chavez
#34. Grant me courage to serve others;
For in service there is true life.
Cesar Chavez
#35. 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.
Cesar Chavez
#36. In non-violence the cause has to be just and clear as well as the means.
Cesar Chavez
#37. If you are interested in preventing animal suffering, the first thing you should give up is eggs and milk because the animals who produce those foods lead the most unhappy lives. You would do better to eat meat and stop eating eggs and dairy products.
Cesar Chavez
#38. Years of misguided teaching have resulted in the destruction of the best in our society, in our cultures and in the environment.
Cesar Chavez
#39. There is no such thing as defeat in non-violence.
Cesar Chavez
#40. We are tired of words, of betrayals, of indifference ... they years are gone when the farm worker said nothing an did nothing to help himself ... Now we have new faith. Through our strong will, our movement is changing these conditions ... We shall be heard.
Cesar Chavez
#41. What I do shows people what kind of person I am.
Cesar Chavez
#42. There is no law for farm labor organizing, save the law of the jungle.
Cesar Chavez
#43. Our very lives are dependent, for sustenance, on the sweat and sacrifice of the campesinos. Children of farm workers should be as proud of their parents' professions as other children are of theirs.
Cesar Chavez
#44. If they had $2.00 for food, they had to give $1.00 to the union. Otherwise, they would never get out of the trap of poverty. They would never have a union because they couldn't afford to sacrifice a little bit more on top of their misery.
Cesar Chavez
#45. The end of all knowledge should be service to others.
Cesar Chavez
#46. Every time we sit at a table at night or in the morning to enjoy the fruits and grain and vegetables from our good earth, remember that they come from the work of men and women and children who have been exploited for generations ...
Cesar Chavez
#47. I think one of the great, great problems ... is confusing people to the point where they become immobile. In fact, the more things people can find out for themselves, the more vigor the organization is going to have.
Cesar Chavez
#48. 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.
Cesar Chavez
#49. Our lives are all that really belong to us, so it is how we use our lives that determines what kind of men we are
Cesar Chavez
#50. Today, the growers are like a punch-drunk old boxer who doesn't know he's past his prime. The times are changing. The political and social environment has changed. The chickens are coming home to roost - and the time to account for past sins is approaching.
Cesar Chavez
#51. We're going to pray a lot and picket a lot.
Cesar Chavez
#52. It takes a lot of punishment to be able to do anything to change the social order.
Cesar Chavez
#53. A symbol is an important thing. That is why we chose an Aztec eagle. It gives pride ... When people see it they know it means dignity.
Cesar Chavez
#54. We don't know how God chooses martyrs. We do know that they give us the most precious gift they possess - their very lives.
Cesar Chavez
#55. Our union represents a breaking away ... represents sharing a power, represent questioning, represents a new force ... however long it takes, we are geared for a struggle.
Cesar Chavez
#56. Non violence means people in action. People have to understand that with non-violence goes a hell of a lot of organization.
Cesar Chavez
#57. In giving of yourself, you will discover a whole new life full of meaning and love.
Cesar Chavez
#58. You know, if people are not pacifists, it's not their fault. It's because society puts them in that spot. You've got to change it. You don't just change a man - you've got to change his environment as you do it.
Cesar Chavez
#59. 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.
Cesar Chavez
#60. Violence just hurts those who are already hurt ... Instead of exposing the brutality of the oppressor, it justifies it.
Cesar Chavez
#61. Non-violence has suffered its biggest defeat in the hands of people who most want to talk about it.
Cesar Chavez
#62. However important the struggle is and however much misery and poverty and degradation exist, we know that it cannot be more important than one human life.
Cesar Chavez
#63. 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.
Cesar Chavez
#64. We are suffering. We have suffered. And we are not afraid to suffer in order to win our cause.
Cesar Chavez
#65. Being of service is not enough. You must become a servant of the people. When you do, you can demand their commitment in return.
Cesar Chavez
#66. 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.
Cesar Chavez
#67. If you're outraged at conditions, then you can't possibly be free or happy until you devote all your time to changing them and do nothing but that. But you can't change anything if you want to hold onto a good job, a good way of life and avoid sacrifice.
Cesar Chavez
#68. 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.
Cesar Chavez
#69. Preservation of one's own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures.
Cesar Chavez
#70. We are certain God's will is that all men share in the good things this earth produces.
Cesar Chavez
#71. Kindness and compassion towards all living things is a mark of a civilized society. Conversely, cruelty, whether it is directed against human beings or against animals, is not the exclusive province of any one culture or community of people.
Cesar Chavez
#72. We are convinced that non-violence is more powerful than violence. We are convinced that non-violence supports you if you have a just and moral cause ... If you use violence, you have to sell part of yourself for that violence. Then you are no longer a master of your own struggle.
Cesar Chavez
#73. Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own.
Cesar Chavez
#74. You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read.
Cesar Chavez
#75. If you're not frightened that you might fail, you'll never do the job. If you're frightened, you'll work like crazy.
Cesar Chavez
#76. In the no-nonsense school of adversity, which we did not choose for ourselves, we are learning how to operate a labor union.
Cesar Chavez
#77. It is possible to become discouraged about the injustice we see everywhere. But God did not promise us that the world would be humane and just. He gives us the gift of life and allows us to choose the way we will use our limited time on earth. It is an awesome opportunity.
Cesar Chavez
#78. There's no reason to be non-violent. There's no challenge unless you are living for people.
Cesar Chavez
#79. We farm workers are closest to food production. We were the first to recognize the serious health hazards of agriculture pesticides to both consumers and ourselves.
Cesar Chavez
#80. We are organizers at heart. Most of us in the movement take great pride in being able to put things together.
Cesar Chavez
#81. Do not romanticize the poor ... We are all people, human beings subject to the same temptations and faults as all others. Our poverty damages our dignity.
Cesar Chavez
#82. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.
Cesar Chavez
#83. Kindness and compassion toward all living things is the mark of a civilized society.
Cesar Chavez
#85. Just as Dr. King was a disciple of Gandhi and Christ, we must now be Dr. King's disciples.
Dr. King challenged us to work for a greater humanity. I only hope that we are worthy of his challenge.
Cesar Chavez
#86. Look at the John Birch Society. Look at Hitler. The reactionaries are always better organizers.
Cesar Chavez
#87. We must understand that the highest form of freedom carries with it the greatest measure of discipline.
Cesar Chavez
#88. We draw our strength from the very despair in which we have been forced to live. We shall endure.
Cesar Chavez
#89. Perhaps we can bring the day when children will learn from their earliest days that being fully man and fully woman means to give one's life to the liberation of the brother [and sister] who suffers. It is up to each one of us. It won't happen unless we decide to use our lives to show the way.
Cesar Chavez
#90. We shall strike. We shall organize boycotts. We shall demonstrate and have political campaigns. We shall pursue the revolution we have proposed. We are sons and daughters of the farm workers' revolution, a revolution of the poor seeking bread and justice.
Cesar Chavez
#91. If you give yourself totally to the nonviolence struggle for peace and justice you also find that people give you their hearts and you will never go hungry and never be alone.
Cesar Chavez
#92. The only ones who make things change are fanatics. If you're not a fanatic around here, you can't cut it.
Cesar Chavez
#93. There's no turning back ... We will win. We are winning because ours is a revolution of mind and heart ...
Cesar Chavez
#94. Our conviction is that human life and limb are a very special possession given by God to man and that no one has the right to take that away, in any cause, however just ...
Cesar Chavez
#95. 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.
Cesar Chavez
#96. 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.
Cesar Chavez
#97. The workers aren't going to stop struggling. They're going to struggle to have a union and they have the right to have it. The police repression and the grower indifference to the workers' demands for recognition cannot go unheard so we're going to keep on struggling until we get that recognition.
Cesar Chavez
#98. There is enough love and good will in our movement to give energy to our struggle and still have plenty left over to break down and change the climate of hate and fear around us.
Cesar Chavez
#99. 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.
Cesar Chavez
#100. In 1968, I became a vegetarian after realizing that animals feel afraid, cold, hungry, and unhappy like we do..
Cesar Chavez
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