Rivera Sun Quotes

A freedom given up is not so easily regained.

All photos speak a thousand words. This one contained a library.

You too know that all my eyes see, all I touch with myself, from any distance, is Diego. The caress of fabrics, the color of colors, the wires, the nerves, the pencils, the leaves, the dust, the cells, the war and the sun, everything experienced in the minutes of the non-clocks and the non-calendars and the empty non-glances, is him.

The Earth was singing her revolution. She was calling her brave men and women to her defense.

The woman looked out at the madness of the world and dared to hope. Her eyes were burning coals of stars.

We've got to make change our national pastime and hold protests more regularly than weekend parties.

Geography and mileage mean nothing. Separate is a single word that covers all distances that aren't together.

As long as we don't cut off our hearts, the inner workings of the universe illuminate before us.

Precarious, life is. A flying leap. A sweep of hand. A star flung across the night. A lucky catch in this whirling juggling circus act. From Steam Drills, Treadmills, and Shooting Stars

This isn't about keeping mountains looking pretty. Ending mountaintop removal is about keeping humanity alive.

Roots, he wrote, symbolize more than underground strong-arms. Roots are also origins, the tendrils of a sprouting seed that give rise to life.

(...)my love for you is deeper than anything that happened between us. My love for you is the sun, the sky, and the moon. It's the air I breathe. It lives in everything I do. It's better than good. It's everlasting.

Stop listening to the TV tell you about America the beautiful . . . get up and be America the beautiful.

No one's life made sense on paper. You cannot condense a person into facts.

People don't move into action because of statistics. They move because of their hearts. We're hardwired with empathy neurons, billions of them, and human beings are evolutionarily programmed to help one another.

This world does not grow from violent roots. It flowers from the seeds of love and respect planted in our hearts. It arises in people who hold the dignity of others in equal measure to their determination for justice. It emerges in the hearts of those who remember that the greatest courage is to move from love instead of hate.

Life wants to live, but more than that, it wants to love.

We shoulder the unbearable, accomplish the impossible, and endure the unthinkable by the intensity of our love.

We are the true roots of resistance, they declared, and the scraggly leaves, golden flowers, and windborne seeds.

Resistance is more than a battle; it is the indomitable presence of life against forces of destruction.

nonviolent action succeeds twice as often as violent means, in a third of the amount of time, and with a fraction of the casualties.

We live in a pivotal juncture in time - a time when it is essential that we grow out of our adolescent, egotistical, and destructive ways, and blossom into the kind of people we have always yearned to be.

Whoever educates the children controls the future. If we want a democratic future, we must plant the seeds in our little dandelions nationwide and ensure that our education is governed of, by, and for the people.

nonviolence worked not because it melted the heart of the oppressor, but because people seized their social, political, and economic power, and refused to let business-as-usual continue until their demands were met.

Without Love, humanity dies of thirst, grasps at riches, destroys the earth through insatiable greed. Without Love, we are walking dust, dead matter stumbling from the dawn of birth to the dusk of death. Without Love, our Earth is stripped of beingness, left barren and lifeless, a pile of rocks and resources, objects to possess and control. Without Love, humanity sleepwalks as automatons, controlled, manipulated, and shoved through a nightmarish existence.

We should be able to stand up for our ideals and not get struck down. We should be able to protest in our streets without the need for armed protection. A world of life, liberty, and love should be allowed to blossom in our towns and cities.

Human spirit connected through the beat.

There's a place between passivity and violence. I'll meet you there.

Without you, I am in the dark. It has been so long, Shizuka, that I might mistake a candle for the sun.

Every human had the seed of rebellion hardwired into their heart. Squeeze the shell of conformity hard enough and it cracks, allowing the spirit of resistance to burst forth.

What is a movement, after all, but the embodiment of aspirations turned into organized action by thousands and millions of people?

For the love of one person, we can find the strength to love the whole world.

Resistance is singing your grandmother's songs so the next generation will know them.

You always have my attention. When you're in the room, you're my sun.

With Love, the pivot of change emerges, the lever stretches long enough to move the world, the arc of the universe bends toward justice, the spirit of humanity soars, and the flood of life revives.

Respecting the humanity of our opposition - who are our fellow citizens whether we approve of their actions or not - requires a depth of fearlessness far beyond the tactics of dehumanization and attacking.

All that is needed is to listen. The love song of the world enters our souls through the language of life. Our touchstone of strength forms the shape of our beloveds. Courage surges into our limbs. We rise. One foot steps in the direction of change. This is the Love that thrusts the world through eternity and carries us forward into the infinity of tomorrow. It sings overhead, scouring the barriers of reality, looking for an opening.

The strength of a movement also relied on participation. Nonviolent campaigns succeeded or failed by the numbers of people willing to get in the way of injustice, or withdraw support from tyrants, or put their hands on the freedom plow and sow the seeds of change.

To love another woman is to streak naked across the sky, swallow the sun in one bite, and live aflame. To love another woman is to look at yourself in the mirror and determine that you are worthy of the galaxy and its fury. To love another woman is to love yourself more than you love her.

An Oath Guardian," Mack told them, "is a soldier, a cop, or any other security officer who refuses to enforce unconstitutional laws. They took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States and they aren't about to let scumbag politicians use them as pawns in their power games. Not against their own people.

The Internet should be free, open, uncensored, and self-governing," Tucker declared, his face shining with passion. "No one should have the right to control it, corporatize it, manipulate its truth, or own it. It is a being. And, like people, like animals, like plants, and like the Earth itself, this being has rights.

Over the years, I have learned that Americans are the fattest and richest people on earth, but they are all starving for kindness. It is a tragedy. There is so much goodness locked in the hearts of the Americans. The people of this country could truly make this the greatest nation on earth . . . if only they were not caged with fear.

Love demanded this of everyone. To care, not just about one person, but about the whole world. To work for justice, not just for those we know, but for everyone we don't. To keep not just our loved ones safe, but also keep the beloveds of strangers safe. To treat others with as much dignity and respect as we ourselves wish to be treated.

People won't stand for it," Charlie had once argued with Bill, "they'll revolt." "You think those in power don't know this?" Bill had replied. "They've got the laws in place for mass arrests, civilian murder, indefinite detention, military tribunals, and martial law. The people, for the most part, are clueless." He swept a gesture to the nation. "Lambs at the slaughterhouse! Jews on the way to the Holocaust!

Democracy wasn't a set of dry documents nicely laid out on office stationary - it brimmed in the lips of thousands of souls and debated in dozens of accents as it crossed the street from one neighborhood to the next. It was the smell of stale coffee and bodies packed into an old community center. It was the typos in the fliers. It was exasperation, realization, illumination - a knockdown, drag out, sweaty, tearful, impassioned process of people making decisions together.

It was not the blatant evil that broke the soul. No, in the face of utter darkness, the human spirit often rose to soaring heights. It was the shades of gray, the nuances and subtleties that wore people down. It was dealing with sellouts and side deals, small injustices and petty grievances that turned heroes into stoop-shouldered, weary old men. That was how they crumbled, idealists like this young man. They tripped on the garbage heap of miserly greed and fearful half-measures.

Everywhere the concrete of control paved over the goodness of the heart, the Dandelion Insurrection sprang up through the cracks.

Even though the clouds are dark, the sun is always right on the other side, and it never stops shining.

Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no

I was wandering through the cerros - the hills of the desert beyond town - at night, barely avoiding low heads of cactus. In the dark, their spines looked more menacing than they did under the sun. But then, I was a child. Everything looked menacing in the dark.

This system has been called leaderless," Zadie said, "but I see it more as leader-full. If every person thoroughly understands the overarching strategy and is empowered to lead, then you've got innovation and organization working together effectively, creating a tremendous explosion of activity without a chain of command.

Nonviolence, create connections, use our civil liberties, and keep humanity and the planet alive .

When fear is used to control people, love is how we rebel.

It works. And it's the only thing that's going to work. Our fear and hatred isn't going to create a better world than the one their greed is working on right now. In a time of hate," Charlie quoted, "love is a revolutionary act.

We have to stop seeing guns and start seeing people. We've got to connect with each other, human to human. Not just in the movement, but everywhere. The police officers need to see that we're not statistics; we are as alive and worthy of life as they are," Charlie said. The mind was the first defense against tyranny. As long as the people kept playing the role of the faceless masses, they were never going to succeed. He nodded to the officer on the corner. The uniformed man gave him a startled look before quickly hiding it under a scowl.

I'm starting to understand why Spark Plug felt powerless," Charlie muttered. "These people don't care about the masses of people in poverty. They don't even know they exist.

By the time the power fails, we will have the people assembled. We will tell them what little we know, and plant the seed of suspicion by alerting them beforehand. We will prevent panic, keep people connected, and set up support systems for this time of crisis.

You can call it by a thousand names, but it's all the same. When an elite group of people function in sneaky, undeclared tyranny, they have become, in essence, a closet dictatorship.

abject lies, misinformation, and propaganda had been perfectly legal in the mainstream news of his country for decades.

Remember: weapons never built a house, fed a child, or planted fields. We must turn to tools of nonviolence to build a chance for life.

Charlie felt stretched across two realities; the beautiful curves of his valley and the starkly brutal landscape of his nation.

We're worried that if no one speaks out, people will fall back on the violence they've been indoctrinated into by the media.

A violence-lusting populace provided fuel for the war machine that required more and more bodies as the war on terrorism stretched around the globe.

Many obstacles needed to be overcome; culturally ingrained apathy, fear of retaliation, the general ill health and drug addiction issues of the populace, the tremendous misinformation spread by the corporate propaganda machine, and the current set of repressive laws.

Humans hadn't even fully acknowledged the equal rights of each other, let alone those of animals or the planet. Animal slavery was as common as housecats and feedlots. Subjugation of ecosystems for natural resources ran as rampant as the rape and abuse of women. The same mentality that sought to possess and extract from the land also sought absolute dominance over the Internet and computers. And now this current corporate-political regime strove to shove humanity back into the dark ages just when our survival depended on recognizing the equal rights of all creation.

when we stop blaming Them and take responsibility for our actions . . . when we consciously withdraw our cooperation from injustice . . . that is when real change begins to occur.

I'm not scared, Charlie's not scared, and if you run into someone who is, your job is to look for what is hidden under the fear.

Do you want to prune the problem down a little," Zadie asked, "or pull it out by the roots?" "The roots, of course," Inez answered immediately. "Then we've got to tackle greed," Zadie said. "If we don't address it as a spiritual and moral failing, no amount of revolution will bring lasting change. The greed of our society must be uprooted, or we will grow into that which we despise.

No!" Zadie exclaimed. "All my contact numbers are in there! We can't destroy it without getting those, Charlie.

When charisma and intelligence joined hands with compassion, the result was dangerous to greed, destruction, and cruelty.

we have responsibilities that are bigger than us, larger than our sorrow and grief. They can be a balm to our hearts. Purpose goes a long way when the journey seems unbearable.

86% if the powerful outlaw life; if they ban love, if they constrict liberty with unjust laws . . . then the dandelions must leap up in defiance, in numbers too vast to suppress, with persistence too determined to stop. And why should they wait for violent means to achieve such a goal, when they could embody that world today?

Violence is the strategy of shit-ass cowards without the balls to do the real work.

You can't make me hate you," Charlie said, so quietly that only Spark Plug could hear. "You can't make me angry. And you can't stop me from feeling only love toward you.

Charlie thought of the flea-ridden couch, the bare bulb of the bike shop, and the gaunt lines in Spark Plug's face. He thought of his own dark nights when he felt the creeping hand of the government tracking him. Better men than he had cast morality aside to live in the mouth-watering world of wealth. Smarter men had seduced themselves into positions of power with half-truths and shoddy rationales. He had never been offered a chance to live in this Garden of Eden, but if he was, he suspected that the shiny red fruit of knowledge would send him tumbling away from the paradise of the wealthy. Charlie knew worried fathers who could not feed their families. He knew mothers who worked two jobs only to send their children to bed hungry. He had peeled apart the intricate layers of a socio-economic system that was riddled with rotten deals that screwed people over. He had tasted the bittersweet fruit of truth and his understanding of right and wrong barred the gate to a blissful existence in this garden.

Every time we idolize the wealthy and try to become rich like them, we're perpetuating the suffering of billions.

Well, it's the same as worshipping our soldiers and glorifying the profession of murder," Zadie said passionately.

Don't believe everything you hear on TV," she snapped. "The middle and upper classes are terrified about the anger of the poor. There have been plenty of advertisements about what to do in times of unrest; how to call the police to report people, how to barricade your door, board over your storefront quickly, hide from the drug-crazed violence of the lower classes. Hah! When was the last time anyone came into my neighborhood, huh? No one comes down here. They are all scared. They think we're huddled on the street corners ready to attack. They imagine that we walk by their grocery stores with rocks in our fists, ready to smash in the windows and loot the shelves. They have nightmares of us raping them, kidnapping their children, stealing all their money.

People wanted to smash storefronts when we could no longer buy bread, but we did not. We smashed the pavement of an abandoned lot in the middle of winter and said our greatest revenge would be to live. And not just to live, but to organize.

You see, the rich treat the poor like cattle in their stockyards. They keep us alive only as long as we continue to bring them profit. They starve us out for jobs, so our sons and daughters are conscripted by the poverty draft and sent to die as soldiers in their wars. They poison us with their cheap food, so then we must slave in their debt-camps to pay for their expensive medical care. They convict us for crimes of survival and then tax us double to lock our brothers and sisters into privatized prisons! Too much money is made from the suffering of the poor!

Violent unrest is exactly what the power elite wants. They're prepared to deal with it. They expect it. It gives them an excuse to tighten the reins and use military force.

Todd turned on the television at a low volume. "That won't give you any real news," Charlie snorted. "No," Todd agreed, "but it's always good to know what lies they're telling.

nation's water resources using the same ideas. Will found it ironic that police, soldiers, the National Guard, and private security could all be mobilized to protect the profits of corporations, but the people couldn't call upon them to protect the water or the land.

I spent the two and one-half months between my meeting with the Art Commission and the beginning of my actual mural work in soaking up impressions of the productive activities of the city. I studied industrial scenes by night as well as by day, making literally thousands of sketches of towering blast furnaces, serpentine conveyor belts, impressive scientific laboratories, busy assembling rooms; also of precision instruments, some of them massive yet delicate; and of the men who worked them all. I walked for miles through the immense workshops of the Ford, Chrysler, Edison, Michigan Alkali, and Parke-Davis plants. I was afire with enthusiasm. My childhood passion for mechanical toys had been transmuted to a delight in machinery for its own sake and for its meaning to man -- his self-fulfillment and liberation from drudgery and poverty. That is why now I placed the collective hero, man-and-machine, higher than the old traditional heroes of art and legend. I felt that in the society of the future as already, to some extent, that of the present, man-and-machine would be as important as air, water, and the light of the sun. This was the "philosophy," the state of mind in which I undertook my Detroit frescoes.

There is no room for resentment. There is nothing to hate. You will never hear from me again. I am a blurry dot, slowly vanishing on the horizon. Let’s count the suns that did not come out. The shallow clouds. The suffocating sweat. Let’s count the excluded loves.