Quote

God does not require us to achieve any of the good tasks that humanity must pursue. What God requires of us is that we not stop trying.

Bayard Rustin

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Bayard Rustin
Age: 74 †
Born: 1912
Born: January 1
Died: 1987
Died: January 1
Activist
Civil Rights Advocate
Lgbtiq+ Rights Activist
Politician
Trade Unionist
Westchester
Pennsylvania
Good
Tasks
Achieve
Humanity
Stop
Peace
Doe
Require
Must
Pursue
Trying
Requires

More quotes by Bayard Rustin

Image
To be afraid is to behave as if the truth were not true.
Bayard Rustin
Image
When you're wrong, you're wrong. But when you're right, you're wrong anyhow.
Bayard Rustin
Image
If we desire a society without discrimination, then we must not discriminate against anyone in the process of building this society. If we desire a society that is democratic, then democracy must become a means as well as an end.
Bayard Rustin
Image
Looking back at his career, Mr. Rustin, a Quaker, once wrote: ‘The principal factors which influenced my life are 1) nonviolent tactics 2) constitutional means 3) democratic procedures 4) respect for human personality 5) a belief that all people are one.’
Bayard Rustin
Image
The organizers and perpetuators of segregation are as much the enemy of America as any foreign invader.
Bayard Rustin
Image
I believe in social dislocation and creative trouble.
Bayard Rustin
Image
My activism did not spring from being black...The racial injustice that was present in this country during my youth was a challenge to my belief in the oneness of the human family.
Bayard Rustin
Image
Martin Luther King, with whom I worked very closely, became very distressed when a number of the ministers working for him wanted him to dismiss me from his staff because of my homosexuality.
Bayard Rustin
Image
I am an opponent of war and of war preparations and an opponent of universal military training and conscription but entirely apart from that issue, I hold that segregation in any part of the body politic is an act of slavery and an act of war.
Bayard Rustin
Image
Every indifference to prejudice is suicide because, if I don’t fight all bigotry, bigotry itself will be strengthened and, sooner or later, it will return on me.
Bayard Rustin
Image
If people do not organize in the name of their interest, the world will not take them as being serious. And that is the chief reason that every person who is gay should join some gay organization. Because he must prove to the world that he cares about his own freedom.
Bayard Rustin
Image
Let us be enraged about injustice, but let us not be destroyed by it.
Bayard Rustin
Image
I believe there are certain types of movements which cannot be married.
Bayard Rustin
Image
If we desire a society in which men are brothers, then we must act towards one another with brotherhood. If we can build such a society, then we would have achieved the ultimate goal of human freedom.
Bayard Rustin
Image
The Journey of Reconciliation was organized not only to devise techniques for eliminating Jim Crow in travel, but also as a training ground for similar peaceful projects against discrimination in such major areas as employment and in the armed services.
Bayard Rustin
Image
Bigotrys birthplace is the sinister back room of the mind where plots and schemes are hatched for the persecution and oppression of other human beings.
Bayard Rustin
Image
People will never fight for your freedom if you have not given evidence that you are prepared to fight for it yourself.
Bayard Rustin
Image
We are all one - and if we don't know it, we will learn it the hard way.
Bayard Rustin
Image
Twenty-five, 30 years ago, the barometer of human rights in the United States were black people. That is no longer true. The barometer for judging the character of people in regard to human rights is now those who consider themselves gay, homosexual, lesbian.
Bayard Rustin
Image
Conscription for war is inconsistent with freedom of conscience, which is not merely the right to believe but to act on the degree of truth that one receives, to follow a vocation which is God-inspired and God-directed.
Bayard Rustin