Cesar Chavez Quotations | Page 2

We are suffering. We have suffered. And we are not afraid to suffer in order to win our cause.

It is my deepest belief that only by giving our lives do we find life.

Across the San Joaquin valley, across California, across the entire nation, wherever there are injustices against men and women and children who work in the fields - there you will see our flags - with the black eagle with the white and red background, flying. Our movement is spreading like flames across a dry plain.

When we are really honest with ourselves we must admit that our lives are all that really belong to us, so it is how we use our lives that determines what kind of men we are. It is my deepest belief that only by giving life do we find life, that the truest act courage, the strongest act of manliness is to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally non-violent struggle for justice. To be a man is to suffer for others, God help us to be men.

This is the beginning of a social movement in fact and not in pronouncements. We seek our basic, God - given rights as human beings...We shall do it without violence because it is our destiny. To the growers and to all who oppose us, we say the words of Benito Juarez: `Respect for another's right is the meaning of peace.'

We are tired of words, of betrayals, of indifference...they years are gone when the farm worker said nothing an did nothing to help himself...Now we have new faith. Through our strong will, our movement is changing these conditions...We shall be heard.

We do not need to kill or destroy to win. We are a movement that builds and not destroys.

...the workers aren't going to stop struggling. They're going to struggle to have a union and they have the right to have it. The police repression and the grower indifference to the workers' demands for recognition cannot go unheard so we're going to keep on struggling until we get that recognition.

However important the struggle is and however much misery and poverty and degradation exist, we know that it cannot be more important than one human life.

We'll organize workers in this movement as long as we're willing to sacrifice. The moment we stop sacrificing, we stop organizing.

Our union represents a breaking away...represents sharing a power, represent questioning, represents a new force...however long it takes, we are geared for a struggle.

it is clearly evident that our path travels through a valley of teas well known to all farm workers, because in all valleys the way of the farm worker has bene one of sacrifice for generations. Our sweat and our blood have fallen on this land to make other men rich. This Pilgrimage is a witness to the suffering we have seen for generations.

Our conviction is that human life and limb are a very special possession given by God to man and that no one has the right to take that away, in any cause, however just...

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

...So they are trying to do something about it. They are not doing it by seeking charity. They are not begging at the welfare office. They are not, like many of their employers, lobbying the halls of Congress with their gold plated tin cups asking to be paid for not growing crops. They are trying to do it in the way that millions of other Americans have shown is the right way-organization, unionism, collective bargaining.

Kindness and compassion towards all living things is a mark of a civilized society. Conversely, cruelty, whether it is directed against human beings or against animals, is not the exclusive province of any one culture or community of people.

In giving of yourself, you will discover a whole new life full of meaning and love.

When any person suffers for someone in greater need, that person is a human.

What is at stake is human dignity. If a man is not accorded respect he cannot respect himself and if he does not respect himself, he cannot demand it.

We need, in a special way, to work twice as hard to help people understand that the animals are fellow creatures, that we must protect them and love them as we love ourselves.

Through Gandhi and my own life experience, I have learned about nonviolence. I believe that human life is a very special gift from God, and that no one has a right to take that away in any cause, however just. I am convinced that nonviolence is more powerful than violence.

A movement with some lasting organization is a lot less dramatic than a movement with a lot of demonstrations and a lot of marching and so forth. The more dramatic organization does catch attention quicker. Over the long haul, however, it's a lot more difficult to keep together because you're not building solid...A lasting organization is one in which people will continue to build, develop and move when you are not there.

You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.

The non-violent technique does not depend for its success on the goodwill of the oppressor, but rather on the unfailing assistance of God.

If you're not frightened that you might fail, you'll never do the job. If you're frightened, you'll work like crazy.

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.

If you are interested in preventing animal suffering, the first thing you should give up is eggs and milk because the animals who produce those foods lead the most unhappy lives. You would do better to eat meat and stop eating eggs and dairy products.

[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.

The end of all knowledge must be the building up of character.

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.

A symbol is an important thing. That is why we chose an Aztec eagle. It gives pride...When people see it they know it means dignity.

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.

(Farm workers) are involved in the planting and the cultivation and the harvesting of the greatest abundance of food known in this society. They bring in so much food to feed you and me and the whole country and enough food to export to other places. The ironic thing and the tragic thing is that after they make this tremendous contribution, they don't have any money or any food left for themselves.

Jesus' life and words are a challenge at the same time that they are Good News. They are a challenge to those of us who are poor and oppressed. By His life He is calling us to give ourselves to others, to sacrifice for those who suffer, to share our lives with our brothers and sisters who are also oppressed. He is calling us to "hunger and thirst after justice" in the same way that we hunger and thirst after food and water: that is, by putting our yearning into practice.

I remember with strong feelings the families who joined our movement and paid dues long before there was any hope of winning contracts. Sometimes, fathers and mothers would take money out of their meager food budgets just because they believed that farm workers could and must build their own union. I remember thinking then that with spirit like that... we had to win. No force on earth could stop us.

There is enough love and good will in our movement to give energy to our struggle and still have plenty left over to break down and change the climate of hate and fear around us.

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.

The people united will never be defeated.

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.

Our very lives are dependent, for sustenance, on the sweat and sacrifice of the campesinos. Children of farm workers should be as proud of their parents' professions as other children are of theirs.

We have seen the future, and the future is ours.

When you sacrifice, you force others to sacrifice. It's an extremely powerful weapon.

We have suffered unnumbered ills and crimes in the name of the Law of the Land. Our men, women and children have suffered not only the basic brutality of stoop labor, and the most obvious injustices of the system; they have also suffered the desperation of knowing that the system caters to the greed of callous men and not to our needs. Now we will suffer for the purpose of ending the poverty, the misery, and the injustice, with the hope that our children will not be exploited as we have been. They have imposed hungers on us, and now we hunger for justice.

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. When the poor share some of the power that the affluent now monopolize, we will give a damn.

Perhaps we can bring the day when children will learn from their earliest days that being fully man and fully woman means to give one's life to the liberation of the brother [and sister] who suffers. It is up to each one of us. It won't happen unless we decide to use our lives to show the way.

You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read.

The people who give you their food give you their heart.

Grant me courage to serve others; For in service there is true life.

It is not good enough to know why we are oppressed and by whom. We must join the struggle for what is right and just. Jesus does not promise that it will be an easy way to live life and His own life certainly points in a hard direction; but it does promise that we will be "satisfied" (not stuffed; but satisfied). He promises that by giving life we will find life - full, meaningful life as God meant it.

I'm not going to ask for anything unless the workers want it. If they want it, they'll ask for it.

Kindness and compassion toward all living things is the mark of a civilized society.

True wealth is not measured in money or status or power. It is measured in the legacy we leave behind for those we love and those we inspire.

History will judge societies and governments — and their institutions — not by how big they are or how well they serve the rich and the powerful, but by how effectively they respond to the needs of the poor and the helpless.

To make a great dream come true, the first requirement is a great capacity to dream; the second is persistence.

Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot un-educate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore. Cesar Chavez Address to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Nov. 9, 1984

In 1968, I became a vegetarian after realizing that animals feel afraid, cold, hungry, and unhappy like we do..

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. It was my dog Boycott who led me to question the right of humans to eat other sentient beings.

. . . when the farm workers strike and their strike is successful, the employers go to Mexico and have unlimited, unrestricted use of illegal alien strikebreakers to break the strike. And, for over 30 years, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has looked the other way and assisted in the strikebreaking. I do not remember one single instance in 30 years where the Immigration Service has removed strikebreakers. . . .The employers use professional smugglers to recruit and transport human contraband across the Mexican border for the specific act of strikebreaking . . .

There's no turning back...We will win. We are winning because ours is a revolution of mind and heart...

Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore. We have seen the future, and the future is ours.

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.