Rosa Quotes

• Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk. Martin Luther King walked so Obama could run. Obama's running so we all can fly.

  Jay-Z

  Running, Kings, Parks

  "Jay-Z: Obama's running so we all can fly" by Dan Martin, www.theguardian.com. November 5, 2008.

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• Rosa Parks was the queen mother of a movement whose single act of heroism sparked the movement for freedom, justice and equality. Her greatest contribution is that she told us a regular person can make a difference.

  Marc Morial

  Mother, Queens, Equality

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• I just think Rosa Parks was overrated. Last time I checked, she got famous for breaking the law.

  Stephen Colbert

  Thinking, Law, Lasts

  "Stephen Colbert must be stopped!" by Dean Obeidallah, www.cnn.com. February 22, 2012.

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• Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, Gandhi — all these peopled described themselves as quiet and soft-spoken and even shy. And they all took the spotlight, even though every bone in their bodies was telling them not to.

  Susan Cain

  Motivation, Inspiration, Spotlight

  "The Power of Introverts". Ted Talk, www.ted.com. February 2012.

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• Rosa Parks showed us all that one little person can make a whole bunch of noise without so much as a whisper. She showed the world that the color of your skin shouldn't determine what part of the bus you sit in... as you ride through life.

  Richard Pryor

  Color, Skins, Parks

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• The US has developed two coordinate governing classes: the one, called 'business,' building cities, manufacturing and distributing goods, and holding complete and autocratic power over the livelihood of millions; the other, called 'government,' concerned with preaching and exemplification of spiritual ideals, so caught in a mass of theory, that when it wished to move in a practical world it had to do so by means of a sub rosa political machine.

  Thurman Arnold

  Spiritual, Moving, Mean

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• The real meaning of courage was the personal sacrifice of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King.

  Pete Seeger

  Courage, Kings, Real

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• Most Americans who made it past the fourth grade have a pretty good idea who Thurgood Marshall, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King, Jr., were. Not many Americans have even heard of Alice Paul, Howard W. Smith, and Martha Griffiths. But they played almost as big a role in the history of women’s rights as Marshall and King played in the history of civil rights for African-Americans. They gave women the handle to the door to economic opportunity, and nearly all the gains women have made in that sphere since the nineteen-sixties were made because of what they did.

  Louis Menand

  Kings, Past, Opportunity

  "The Sex Amendment". www.newyorker.com. July 21, 2014.

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• Rosa Parks will be remembered for her lasting contributions to society. Her legacy lives on in the continued struggle for civil rights around the world. She will be missed.

  Jim Costa

  Struggle, Rights, Legacy

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• Charles Darwin, who had witnessed the
  atrocities perpetrated against Argentina’s native
  Indians by Juan Manuel de Rosas, had predicted
  that “the country will be in the hands of white
  Gaucho savages instead of copper-coloured Indians.
  The former being a little superior in education,
  as they are inferior in every moral virtue.

  Jon Lee Anderson

  Country, Hands, White

  Jon Lee Anderson (2010). “Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life”, p.6, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• 

  There will come a time when the gun owners of America, the law-abiding gun owners of America, will be the Rosa Parks and we will sit down on the front seat of the bus, case closed.

  Ted Nugent

  Gun, Law, America

  "Ted nugent unloads: Gun owners the next rosa parks". www.wnd.com. January 9, 2013.

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• Rosa Parks' courage, determination, and tenacity continue to be an inspiration to all those committed to non-violent protest and change nearly half a century later.

  Bob Filner

  Determination, Inspiration, Half

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• The world knows of Rosa Parks because of a single, simple act of dignity and courage that struck a lethal blow to the foundations of legal bigotry.

  William J. Clinton

  Blow, Simple, Foundation

  "Funeral Speakers Urge Public to Continue Parks' Legacy", www.foxnews.com. November 3, 2005.

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• I went to jail 44 times. I've been beaten and left for dead on the side of the road fighting for freedom. . . . Yet Rosa Parks is better known in history than Ralph David Abernathy. Why is that?

  Ralph Abernathy

  Fighting, Jail, Parks

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• I hope that, reading 'Rosa,' people will remember their own family and friends and talk about what they did and did not do.

  Nikki Giovanni

  Reading, People, Family And Friends

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• Rosa Luxemburg was - still is for me - a great personal and intellectual heroine. Her analysis of Leninism and capitalism and social democracy are all worth reading. I wouldn't consider anyone truly politically literate if they hadn't given her work at least some study.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Reading, Intellectual, Democracy

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• Rosa Parks was an unlikely person, but she became an instrument of the people's will in that community who were tired. They said she was tired from working and perhaps she was - but she herself said later that she was spiritually tired and weary of being humiliated by being asked to move back so that a white person could occupy her seat.

  Joseph Lowery

  Moving, Tired, White

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• In France it was Joan of Arc; in the Crimea it was Florence Nightingale; in the deep south there was Rosa Parks; in India there was Mother Teresa and in Florida there was Katherine Harris.

  Larry Gatlin

  Mother, Florida, Florence Nightingale

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• The campaign to put a woman on the $20 bill has narrowed the choices down to four finalists. The four finalists are Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Flo from the Progressive Insurance ads.

  Conan O'Brien

  Choices, Campaigns, Four

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• Rosa Luxemburg maintained that the capitalist system can keep up its rate of investment (and therefore its profits) only so long as it is expanding geographically.

  Joan Robinson

  Long, Investment, Profit

  Joan Robinson (1973). “Economic heresies: some old-fashioned questions in economic theory”

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• Anybody who is born in Santa Rosa must turn out to be either an artist or a poet, for the spirit of the hills gets into your blood out there.

  Robert Ripley

  Artist, Blood, Santa

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• It's been an incredible few weeks for Emma Pooley, first winning three stages in the Giro Rosa to demonstrate that she's the best climber in the women's peloton, then lining up for La Course - a race she helped to make happen - on the Champs-Elyses. So, it may come as a surprise to hear that she will retire after the Commonwealth Games road race on Sunday.

  Emma Pooley

  Sunday, Winning, Race

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• If Rosa Parks had not refused to move to the back of the bus, you and I might never have heard of Dr. Martin Luther King.

  Ramsey Clark

  Kings, Moving, Drs

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• We live in a society that says "You Gotta get yours" and I'm not suggesting that you don't handle your business but I want to show people... Gandhi gave, Mother Theresa gave, Martin Luther King gave, Rosa Parks gave, Sojourner Truth gave, and these people had a rich life! They may have not had a Rolls Royce, Range Rover, or lived in the best neighborhoods but they changed history forever and they changed lives forever and that's what I aim to do.

  Eric Thomas

  Mother, Kings, Rich Life

  "Daily Word: Happy Holidays!! (You Have to Want Success As Bad As You Want To Breathe!!)". Interview with Ash Cash, allhiphop.com. December 25, 2012.

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• If Rosa Parks had taken a poll before she sat down in the bus in Montgomery, she'd still be standing.

  Mary Frances Berry

  Taken, Parks, Human Rights

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