Top 100 John Lewis Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “When you burn down a building or topple a car, the violence drown out the injustice of what’s being done to you. It puts you on the same moral level as the people whose violence you are protesting. You’re no longer on the higher ground or plane. You make enemies of the people you need to win over to effect change.”

— John Lewis

52. “But have faith that your good work will be a drop in the river that will eventually break the damn, ushering in a more peaceful world.”

— John Lewis

53. “The only reason unjust systems exist is that the masses of people silently give their consent and believe these systems are necessary – whether for their security or survival.”

— John Lewis

54. “Some people have told me that I am a rare bird in the blue sky of dreamers.”

— John Lewis

55. “It is important for upcoming activists to study American history, as well as political and philosophical thought. It is unlikely that what you hope to accomplish is new. Current activism is almost always linked to the history of revolution worldwide, and Americans have a special connection to this legacy because our nation was born out of the struggle against tyranny.”

— John Lewis

56. “War that is waged for power or dominion over other human beings obscures the inevitable truth that we are all members of one family, and no matter who has conquered whom, who now resents whom, who holds bitterness against whom, the only way we can have true peace is to set aside our injuries and our dedication to revenge and accept our equal divinity.”

— John Lewis

57. “Martin Luther King Jr. was much more than a dreamer. He believed that faith had no meaning unless it had the power to resolve the problems of our daily lives.”

— John Lewis

58. “We need to make books available to children so they can easily learn about the world, and they can follow their imaginations. Children who read maintain their sense of wonder and ask questions – necessary questions – that make us examine why things are the way they are.”

— John Lewis

59. “The truth does not change, and that is why the answers worked out long ago can you help find solutions to the challenges of our time.”

— John Lewis

60. “Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society. The work of love, peace, and justice will always be necessary, until their realism and their imperative takes hold of our imagination, crowds out any dream of hatred or revenge, and fills up our existence with their power.”

— John Lewis

61. “We were very aware that our civility demonstrated above all the absurdity of brutalizing peaceful, law-abiding citizens and detaining them from exercising their constitutional rights.”

— John Lewis

62. “Destruction doesn’t work. Rioting isn’t a movement. We must be constructive and not destructive. Chaos is sowing more division and discord.”

— John Lewis

63. “It is the responsibility, yet the individual choice, of each of us to use the light we have to dispel the work of darkness, because if we do not, then the power of falsehood rises. Through our inaction it becomes stronger, and a more potent force. It can even lead to the dimming of the light of all humanity born on this planet.”

— John Lewis

64. “They are all marching to redeem the soul of the nation, to create a society at peace with ourselves.”

— John Lewis

65. “Because I had long ago decided that I wasn’t going to be bound by the mental shackles of hate, anger, and discontent. Forgiveness is medicine for the mind, balm for the body, and healing for the heart.”

— John Lewis

66. “Love is a better way.”

— John Lewis

67. “It’s the action, not the fruit of the action, that’s important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there’ll be any fruit. But that doesn’t mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.” – MOHANDAS GANDHI.”

— John Lewis

68. “We are involved now in a serious revolution. This nation is still a place of cheap political leaders who build their careers on immoral compromises and ally themselves with open forms of political, economic and social exploitation. What political leader here can stand up and say, “My party is the party of principles?”

— John Lewis

69. “Governments and corporations do not live. They have no power, no capacity in and of themselves. They are given life and derive all their authority from their ability to assist, benefit, and transform the lives of the people they touch. All authority emanates from the consent of the governed and the satisfaction of the customer.”

— John Lewis

70. “No government, no multinational corporation, no agency at all could counter the mandates of a unified world community. And that is why so much energy and resources are invested in division and separation.”

— John Lewis

71. “Darkness cannot overcome darkness, only light can do that.”

— John Lewis

72. “We think of ourselves as more enlightened, more developed than the “primitive” peoples our civilizations have supplanted, yet in all our advancement, we are responsible for more death, more suffering, more murder and mayhem than any period in recorded history.”

— John Lewis

73. “We saw that our attackers were also victims, victims of a negative indoctrination that taught the false values of superiority and inferiority, the sanction of violence and brutality, and the justification of inhumanity and hate.”

— John Lewis

74. “We cannot thrive as a democracy when justice is reserved for only those with means.”

— John Lewis

75. “To reconcile ourselves with one another, we must release our judgments and make peace with the fact that we are one. This country was founded on the ideal that we are all created equal. If we truly believe in the equality of all humankind, how can we put down and belittle one another? How can we disrespect and prejudge one another? How can we come to the point where we malign and hate one another?”

— John Lewis

76. “When you see something that is not right, not just, not fair, you have a moral obligation to say something, to do something.”

— John Lewis

77. “What is the purpose of a nation if not to empower human beings to live better together than they could individually?”

— John Lewis

78. “America, a nation destined for greatness but tarnished by a persistent, nagging untruth.”

— John Lewis

79. “It is the responsibility, yet the individual choice, of each of us to use the light we have to dispel the work of darkness, because if we do not, the power of falsehood rises. Through our inaction it becomes stronger, and a more potent force. It can even lead to the dimming of the light of all humanity born on this planet. That is why we struggle. That is why we fight to contribute to the confirmation of what is good, to seal our compact with love within our own lives and within our world.”

— John Lewis

80. “The human heart is the most important frontier to conquer in the struggle for human dignity.”

— John Lewis

81. “Informed activism requires reading the newspaper, tracking bills through the Library of Congress’s THOMAS website, and watching legislative debates on C-SPAN. It also means learning which legislators on all levels sit on committees that affect your issue.”

— John Lewis

82. “Tragedy is the great equalizer.”

— John Lewis

83. “There’s a quote of Dr. King’s that I use from time to time, which I rephrase: “To be bold, to be creative, to never give up, and never to hate – for hate is too big a burden to bear. I have decided to love.”

— John Lewis

84. “Nothing can stop the power of a committed and determined people to make a difference in our society. Why? Because human beings are the most dynamic link to the divine on this planet.”

— John Lewis

85. “Tension motivates the imperative to change.”

— John Lewis

86. “Lynching and vigilantism were considered duties, the necessary protection of men who were guarding the sanctity of social boundaries and the “purity” of their lineage. No matter the rationale, these ideas put a virtuous face on centuries of brutal history that actually robbed our aggressors of their moral grounding and made them creative participants in violence.”

— John Lewis

87. “If we are truly to learn the lessons of the Civil Rights Movement, the Holocaust, or the conflict in Northern Ireland, we must concede that discomfort breeds dislike, dislike breeds disdain, disdain breeds contempt, and contempt breeds hate.”

— John Lewis

88. “There is still much more work to do. One movement will never offer all the growth humanity needs to experience. To expect so is to build your hopes on a puff of smoke, on a whispered breath; it is to anticipate an illusion.”

— John Lewis

89. “There was a time when politicians needed to be great orators because the people themselves were grappling with the challenges of conscience, trying to perceive what is “right” and what is “wrong.” But today, not only do we miss the eloquence of public speaking, but the moral compass of so many leaders seems to be skewed.”

— John Lewis

90. “I believed innocently and profoundly as a child that the world could be a better place.”

— John Lewis

91. “Soul force is the ability to counter the forces of injustice with fearlessness, knowing that your soul is connected to the greatest force in the universe. Threats, violence, and aggression are simply tools that are used to make us doubt our capacity to overcome.”

— John Lewis

92. “In the South, we knew our adversary would stop at nothing to silence our activism. We knew we could never match his readiness to annihilate our resistance. So we ceded him that ground and challenged him instead to defend himself against the work of loving peace.”

— John Lewis

93. “Whatever good work you do, whatever powerful, profound work-do it because it’s right or because it’s necessary. Do it to make change for the better. Do it because you know you must. Don’t do it for credit.”

— John Lewis

94. “Martin Luther King Jr. said that peace is not the absence of tension, but the presence of justice.”

— John Lewis

95. “We no longer dwell in that daydream. We were shaken to realism by the harshness of what we have witnessed in the last few years – the vilification of President Obama, a drive to wreck his legacy and undo the progress we have made as a nation in the last hundred years, a disdain for the sick and the poor, militarization of the police, and the weaponizing of government not to serve as an advocate, but as an agent of oppression and compliance.”

— John Lewis

96. “During the 1960s, we protested with non-violent methods. There is something peaceful, cleansing, and wholesome about being orderly and not threatening.”

— John Lewis

97. “We ask ourselves ‘who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people don’t feel insecure around you. When we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”

— John Lewis

98. “It is so strange to me that we have learned to fly in the air like birds, learned to swim in the ocean like fish, shoot a rocket to the moon, but we have not yet learned how to live together in harmony with one another.”

— John Lewis

99. “Instead of suggesting that people with cultures and customs we do not understand, people with different color skin, or those who speak another language are somehow beneath us, instead of developing an elaborate rationale to justify our discomfort, it is more honest to simply admit our insecurity and gain acceptance.”

— John Lewis

100. “Human beings are the most dynamic link to the divine on this planet.”

— John Lewis