We draw our strength from the very despair in which we have been forced to live. We shall endure.

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.

We need to help students and parents cherish and preserve the ethnic and cultural diversity that nourishes and strengthens this community - and this nation.

We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community... Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own.

Preservation of one's own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures.

You are never strong enough that you don't need help.

If you really want to make a friend, go to someone's house and eat with him... the people who give you their food give you their heart.

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.

We draw our strength from the very despair in which we have been forced to live. We shall endure.

Students must have initiative; they should not be mere imitators. They must learn to think and act for themselves - and be free.

The fight is never about grapes or lettuce. It is always about people.

There is no substitute for hard work, 23 or 24 hours a day. And there is no substitute for patience and acceptance.

In some cases non-violence requires more militancy than violence.

There is no such thing as defeat in non-violence.

Our language is the reflection of ourselves. A language is an exact reflection of the character and growth of its speakers.

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?

It is my deepest belief that only by giving our lives do we find life. I am convinced that the truest act of courage, the strongest act of manliness is to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally non-violent struggle for justice.

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.

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.

There are vivid memories from my childhood - what we had to go through because of low wages and the conditions, basically because there was no union. I suppose, if I wanted to be fair, I could say that I'm trying to settle a personal score. I could dramatize it by saying that I want to bring social justice to farm workers.

There is no law for farm labor organizing, save the law of the jungle.

Though many of the poor have come to see the affluent middle class as its enemy, that class actually stands between the poor and the real powers in this society - the administrative octopus with its head in Washington, the conglomerates, the military complex.

To be a man is to suffer for others. God help us to be men!

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.

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.

When poor people get involved in a long conflict, such as a strike or a civil rights drive, and the pressure increases each day, there is a deep need for spiritual advice. Without it, we see families crumble, leadership weaken, and hard workers grow tired.

When we are really honest with ourselves we must admit our lives are all that really belong to us. So it is how we use our lives that determines the kind of men we are.

Preservation of ones own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures.

If you really want to make a friend go to someones house and eat with him the people who give you their food give you their heart.

Non-violence is not inaction. It is not discussion. It is not for the timid or weak. Non-violence is hard work. It is the willingness to sacrifice. It is the patience to win.

The first principal of nonviolent action is that of noncooperation with everything humiliating.

Our language is the reflection of ourselves.

It takes a lot of punishment to be able to do anything to change the social order.

Talk is cheap..It is the way we organize and use our lives every day that tell what we believe in.

Courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.

If pessimism is despair, optimism is cowardice and stupidity. Is there any need to choose between them?

Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings.

Don't despair too much if you see beautiful things destroyed, if you see them perish. Because the best things are always growing in secret.

Every composer knows the anguish and despair occasioned by forgetting ideas which one had no time to write down.

With optimism, you look upon the sunny side of things. People say, 'Studs, you're an optimist.' I never said I was an optimist. I have hope because what's the alternative to hope? Despair? If you have despair, you might as well put your head in the oven.

You may not know it, but at the far end of despair, there is a white clearing where one is almost happy.

Law is born from despair of human nature.

If I were a girl, I'd despair. The supply of good women far exceeds that of the men who deserve them.

This book, conceived in sorrow, composed in grief, and constructed at the brink of despair, contains my mind's best thoughts, and my soul's triumph over the powers of darkness.

Her pupils were at once her salvation and her despair. They gave her the means of supporting life, but they made life hardly worth supporting.

It is not enough to tackle the mechanics of terror organizations. We must also tackle the situations that create terrorists. We desperately need to address the frustration, the loss and the despair that drive some to these actions.

Los Angeles was an impression of failure, of disappointment, of despair, and of oddly makeshift lives. This is California? I thought.

Despair is the conclusion of fools.

Melancholy and sadness are the start of doubt... doubt is the beginning of despair; despair is the cruel beginning of the differing degrees of wickedness.