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I am an organizer, not a union leader. A good organizer has to work hard and long. There are no shortcuts. You just keep talking to people, working with them, sharing, exchanging and they come along.

Cesar Chavez

I became a vegetarian after realizing that animals feel afraid, cold, hungry and unhappy like we do. I feel very deeply about vegetarianism and the animal kingdom.
CESAR CHAVEZ

Animal Fear Feeling Happiness Myself
Non-violence has suffered its biggest defeat in the hands of people who most want to talk about it.
CESAR CHAVEZ

Defeat Hands People Suffering Talk Violence
Our struggle is not easy. Those who oppose our cause are rich and powerful and they have many allies in high places. We are poor. Our allies are few. But we have something the rich do not own. We have our bodies and spirits and the justice of our cause as our weapons.
CESAR CHAVEZ

Body Justice Ourselves Poor Powerful Rich Spirit Struggle Weapon
When the man who feeds the world by toiling in the fields is himself deprived of the basic rights of feeding, sheltering, and caring for his own family, the whole community of man is sick.
CESAR CHAVEZ

Community Family Himself Man Sick World
The love for justice that is in us is not only the best part of our being but it is also the most true to our nature.
CESAR CHAVEZ

Justice Love Nature Ourselves True
There are many reasons for why a man does what he does. To be himself he must be able to give it all. If a leader cannot give it all he cannot expect his people to give anything.
CESAR CHAVEZ

Expectation Himself Leadership Man People Reason
When workers fall back on violence, they are lost. Oh, they might win some of their demands and might end a strike a little earlier, but they give up their imagination, their creativity, their will to work hard and to suffer for what they believe is right.
CESAR CHAVEZ

Believe Creation Fall Give Up Imagination Lost Suffering Violence Win
Our language is the reflection of ourselves. A language is an exact reflection of the character and growth of its speakers.
CESAR CHAVEZ

Character Growth Language Ourselves Reflection
It’s amazing how people can get so excited about a rocket to the moon and not give a damn about smog, oil leaks, the devastation of the environment with pesticides, hunger, disease.
CESAR CHAVEZ

Excitement Moon People
We believe that unions have always been about much more than the industries in which they operate. The fight is never about grapes or lettuce, It is always about people.
CESAR CHAVEZ

Believe Fight Food People
We have looked into the future and the future is ours.
CESAR CHAVEZ

Future Love Ourselves Relationship
The only ones who make things change are fanatics. If you’re not a fanatic around here, you can’t cut it.
CESAR CHAVEZ

Change Mad Oneself
The fight is never about grapes or lettuce. It is always about people.
CESAR CHAVEZ

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

Acceptance Patience
Those who are willing to sacrifice and be of service have very little difficulty with people. They know what they are all about. People can’t help but want to be near them. They help them; they work with them. That’s what love is all about. It starts with your heart and radiates out.
CESAR CHAVEZ

Help Love People Sacrifice Start Willing
We need to help students and parents cherish and preserve the ethnic and cultural diversity that nourishes and strengthens this community – and this nation.
CESAR CHAVEZ

Community Help Nation Need Parents Strength Student
In the final analysis it doesn’t really matter what the political system is. We don’t need perfect political systems; we need perfect participation.
CESAR CHAVEZ

Need Perfection Politics
Years of misguided teaching have resulted in the destruction of the best in our society, in our cultures and in the environment.
CESAR CHAVEZ

Best Destruction Ourselves Teaching
You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.
CESAR CHAVEZ

Oppression Scare Yourself
Do not romanticize the poor. We are all people, human beings subject to the same temptations and faults as all others. Our poverty damages our dignity.
CESAR CHAVEZ

Dignity Human Ourselves People Poor
The people who give you their food give you their heart.
CESAR CHAVEZ

Food Heart People Yourself
Only when we have become nonviolent towards all life will we have learned to live well with others.
CESAR CHAVEZ

Learning Life Live Violence
I am convinced that the truest act of courage, the strongest act of manliness, is to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally nonviolent struggle for justice. To be a man is to suffer for others. God help us to be men!
CESAR CHAVEZ

Act Courage God Man Myself Ourselves Sacrifice Suffering True
There’s no reason to be non-violent. There’s no challenge unless you are living for people.
CESAR CHAVEZ

Challenge Live People Reason Violence Yourself
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.
CESAR CHAVEZ

Need People Problem Strength Togetherness
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.
CESAR CHAVEZ

Determination Honesty Kind Live Men Ourselves
Concentration is inspiration. You must be completely overtaken by your work and your subject. Only then do all your influences and experience come up to the surface.
CESAR CHAVEZ

Experience Inspirational Yourself

I am an organizer, not a union leader. A good organizer has to work hard and long. There are no shortcuts. You just keep talking to people, working with them, sharing, exchanging and they come along.

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I am an organizer, not a union leader. A good organizer has to work hard and long. There are no shortcuts. You just keep talking to people, working with them, sharing, exchanging and they come along.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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