Harvey Milk Quotes

“All men are created equal. No matter how hard they try, they can never erase those words. That is what America is about.”

“All young people, regardless of sexual orientation or identity, deserve a safe and supportive environment in which to achieve their full potential.”

“Every gay person must come out. As difficult as it is, you must tell your immediate family. You must tell your relatives. You must tell your friends if indeed they are your friends. You must tell the people you work with. You must tell the people in the stores you shop in. Once they realize that we are indeed their children, that we are indeed everywhere, every myth, every lie, every innuendo will be destroyed once and all. And once you do, you will feel so much better.”

“Freedom is too enormous to be slipped under a closet door.”

“Hope will never be silent.”

“I finally reached the point where I knew I had to become involved or shut up.”

“I know that you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living.”

“If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door in the country.”

“If I do a good job, people won't care if I am green or have three heads.”

“If I turned around every time somebody called me a f*gg*t, I'd be walking backward – and I don't want to walk backward.”

“If it were true that children mimicked their teachers, you'd sure have a helluva lot more nuns running around.”

“If you are not personally free to be yourself in that most important of all human activities, the expression of love, then life itself loses its meaning.”

“It takes no compromising to give people their rights. It takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no survey to remove repressions.”

“Politics is theater. It doesn't matter if you win. You make a statement. You say, "I'm here, pay attention to me.”

“Rights are won only by those who make their voices heard.”

“The American Dream starts with the neighborhoods.”

“The fact is that more people have been slaughtered in the name of religion than for any other single reason. That, my friends, is true perversion.”

“We will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets.”