110+ Van Jones Quotes On Education, Culture And Politics

Van Jones is an American activist, attorney, and author. He is best known for his environmental advocacy and his work as a civil rights activist. He is the co-founder of several organizations, including the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Color of Change, and Dream Corps, which focus on social justice and criminal justice reform. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Van Jones on education, culture, leadership.

Top 10 Van Jones Quotes

1. It's in that convergence of spiritual people becoming active and active people becoming spiritual that the hope of humanity now rests.
2. If the road to social transformation can be paved only by saints who never make mistakes, the road will NEVER be built.
3. The time has come to move beyond eco-elitism to eco-populism.
4. Barack Obama volunteered to be the Captain of the Titanic AFTER it hit the iceberg
5. Environmental justice is the movement to ensure that no community suffers disproportionate environmental burdens or goes without enjoying fair environmental benefits.
6. The time has come to move beyond eco-elitism to eco-populism. Ecopopulism. To change our laws and culture, the green movement justice, political solutions and social change.
7. I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future.
8. Civility isn't just some optional value in a multicultural, multistate democratic republic. Civility is the key to civilization.
9. We have the chance to build this new energy economy in ways that reflect our deepest values of inclusion, diversity, and equal opportunity for everyone.
10. Any successful long-term strategy will require that the green wave fully and passionately embrace the principles of eco-equity.

Van Jones Short Quotes

• We need to think bigger, dream bigger, and get bigger.
• I think we have every reason to hope for the best but expect and prepare for the worst.
• No one is above the law, and no one is beneath the law.
• I'm only 42, and I've got a lot more tricks up my sleeve.
• It's become fashionable to put down people who we then expect to vote for us.
• Audacity is the currency for authoritarians.
• You can't lead anybody you don't love. You can't do it. It's not possible.
• You put Hillary Clinton up against Donald Trump, I'm scared of the choice no matter what you do.
• You don't get lower ratings playing the villain on reality TV.
• Nobody can come and be involved in the #LoveArmy unless they have a heart.

Van Jones Quotes About Politics

Black politics is redemption and transformation. It's not always pretty, but it's not always ugly either. I'll put India.Arie up against Donald Trump any day and let the people choose. — Van Jones

We need a more diversified portfolio of change-making tools so that we don't just get so freaked out by whatever's happening in the political corner. — Van Jones

Sometimes we overemphasize the political system. There are other ways to make a difference. There's technology, there's media, there's business. — Van Jones

Local politics matters a lot. — Van Jones

There are some cities that are doing good stuff, but there aren't enough of them. If you don't fight for what you want, then you deserve what you get. And in politics, if you don't ask, you don't get at all. — Van Jones

We thought Donald Trump was leaving that world of entertainment and climbing over the wall into politics. In fact, what he did was he pulled the world of politics into the world of reality television. — Van Jones

Van Jones Quotes About Inspiring

I do feel kind of like I have a split identity in that there's Van Jones, who has this big public role and tries to inspire millions of people to do new stuff together. And then there's just me: a pretty quiet, shy, retiring person. — Van Jones

I think it would be good to get somebody a job. Right now we're in a bubble of green rhetoric and a bowl of actual green investment and job creation. So my goal for next year is to move from inspiration to implementation on this stuff. — Van Jones

I have many sources of inspiration. I'd have to point to Dr. Martin Luther King, first and foremost. But my parents were good, hardworking folks who kept us in the church and the public schools, and out of trouble, for the most part. — Van Jones

Ocean's remarkable stories, depth of commitment, and eloquent communication make him a fantastic resource for conferences, universities, and indeed everyone who wants a potent dose of grounded inspiration. — Van Jones

Van Jones Quotes About Progressive

Keith Ellison is the future of the Democratic Party, the future of the progressive movement. — Van Jones

Progressives are overreacting .Underreacting, though, to the - what the real threats are, and the real opportunities. — Van Jones

Progressives always like clean energy ideas. But conservatives should like this agenda, too. — Van Jones

I consider myself to be sort of a progressive Afrofuturist that is deeply committed to social justice. — Van Jones

Van Jones Quotes About Energy

To shift America (and the world) to a cleaner energy economy, millions of people will have to go to work in new industries. This necessary shift opens up tremendous new opportunities for work and wealth creation. — Van Jones

We need a national renewable energy goal. Such a goal, sometimes called a renewable energy standard (RES), would spell out what percentage of our power America plans to get from renewable sources. — Van Jones

There are 80,000 jobs in the wind energy industry right now. And you can quadruple that number, if you have the right policy in place to promote clean energy. — Van Jones

People forget: solar panels don't put themselves up. Wind turbines don't manufacture themselves. Businesses don't retrofit themselves to waste less energy and water, nor do homes weatherize themselves. — Van Jones

People in red states and blue states can agree that clean air is better than dirty air; therefore we should use clean energy where we can. — Van Jones

I would argue that we have a patriotic duty to move toward energy independence and clean energy. It is a matter of national security - energy security, climate security, economic security, job security, everything. — Van Jones

We are trying to reinvigorate our stagnant energy sector, to create avenues for new wealth. Clean energy innovation, job creation and energy independence should be common ground for all Americans. — Van Jones

Clean energy independence should be an area of common ground. — Van Jones

The dirty energy crowd can be offset only by the power of the rising clean energy sector and the American people, aroused across party lines. — Van Jones

We should use the transition to a better energy strategy as an opportunity to create a better economy and a better country all around. — Van Jones

Van Jones Quotes About Green

The green economy should not just be about reclaiming throw-away stuff. It should be about reclaiming thrown-away communities. It should not just be about recycling things to give them a second life. We should also be gathering up people and giving them a second chance. — Van Jones

That's one component: rather than creating job-training pipelines that put these kids at the back of the line for the last century's pollution-based jobs, we need to be creating opportunities for them to be at the front of the line for the new clean and green jobs. — Van Jones

America should be leading the world in green and clean solutions, and human rights. We shouldn't be leading the world in wars and incarceration rates and pollution. We can be a better country. I think we're going to be a better country. — Van Jones

The surest path to safe streets and peaceful communities is not more police and prisons, but ecologically sounds economic development. And that same path can lift us to a new, green economy - one with the power to lift people out of poverty while respecting and repairing the environment. — Van Jones

To change our laws and culture, the green movement must attract and include the majority of all people, not just the majority of affluent people. — Van Jones

Now we stand at our own crossroads, looking out upon two futures: one with rising temperatures, rising oceans, and rising violence on a hot and strip-mined planet and another with expanding organic harvests, growing solar arrays, and deepening global partnerships on a green and thriving Earth. — Van Jones

Most green-collar jobs are middle-skill jobs. That means they require more education that a high-school diploma, but less than a four-year degree. — Van Jones

We need to aim high - in the area of 20-25 percent - to create the urgent demand for new technologies, manufacturing plants and green jobs. — Van Jones

The prospects of green economic opportunity is going to be determined to a great extent by politicians arriving at some sort of bi-partisan resolution. — Van Jones

In addition, black folks need to attend green conferences, too. We just self-segregate and don't go. They might even waive your fee if you apply on a diversity basis, because they'd be so shocked to see somebody from a different background wanting to be a part of the green movement. — Van Jones

Van Jones Famous Quotes And Sayings

Listen, here's reality. It is completely unfair and absolutely necessary that people who have been oppressed and marginalized have to lead everybody. That is MLK, that is Dolores Huerta, that is Fannie Lou Hamer, that is Ella Jo Baker, that is Nelson Mandela. You walk down the line. — Van Jones

If [Donald ] Trump goes after - if Trump fails, frankly, to stand up right now for the Muslim community - right now, Muslims are being bullied. Women wearing hijabs are being bullied and people are saying, "Trump, Trump!" when they're doing it. — Van Jones

Let's stop wasting billions of dollars on prisons, which send people home who are too often less capable and more damaged than when they went in. We would have safer neighborhoods if we spent the same money on true rehabilitation, job training, employment and entrepreneurship. — Van Jones

In a two-year period, all my dreams came true: the birth of a son... publishing a best-selling book... launching a successful organization... joining the [Barack] Obama Administration... And then all my nightmares came true. — Van Jones

We need to send hundreds of millions of dollars down to our public high schools, vocational colleges, and community colleges to begin training people in the green-collar work of the future - things like solar-panel installation, retrofitting buildings that are leaking energy, wastewater reclamation, organic food, materials reuse and recycling. — Van Jones

I think there's going to be a tug of war in this country over who are the real patriots because at a time of national crisis, economic collapse and calamity, ecological peril and social dislocation, the American people deserve to be a partner to the American government. — Van Jones

Come, then, let us go forward together with our united strength - and win a better future for generations to come. — Van Jones

When you take the people who most need work and connect them with the work that most needs doing, you save. You save that young person’s life, you save a whole bunch of money, and you save the soul of this country when you invest and give people a chance, give people hope, give people opportunity. — Van Jones

Trump is much, much worse than people understand. A lot of his supporters are actually much, much better than people know. Most of his supporters are not signed up for an authoritarian coup. Most of his supporters are signing up for better jobs for themselves. — Van Jones

Ninth generation American, ma'am, and I'm the first one in my family born with all my rights. I'm a ninth generation American. And so we have not escaped because I went to Yale all the problems of this country. — Van Jones

As champions of green jobs, we're asking questions that progressives should like, like "How are we going to avoid baking the planet," and "How are we going to create jobs for ordinary Americans?" Meanwhile, we're offering solutions that conservative should like. I'm not calling for more welfare; I'm calling for more work. — Van Jones

Reversing global warming will take a World War II level of mobilization. It is the work of tens of millions, not hundreds of thousands. — Van Jones

We've have to heed our Biblical obligation to be good stewards of the Earth after leaving the Garden of Eden. — Van Jones

Donald Trump's promised the moon. Now he has power. He's going to fail to deliver. He's not going to be able to bring a bunch of coal jobs back and a bunch of factory jobs back in this global economy. Period. Because you can't. It's not going to happen. — Van Jones

We should not allow the fundamentalists and the bigots to take over and speak for the great faiths any more than we should let them take over and speak for the great nation. — Van Jones

God chooses community sometimes to bear an unfair burden to force us to rise to the next level of consciousness and understanding. — Van Jones

Most people walking around in a mall or on a college campus are carrying on them better technology than the entire U.S. government had when it put a man on the moon. Each one of us is a walking technological superpower. — Van Jones

We need to invest in job training programs, especially those that include child care, transit stipends and paid apprenticeships and internships. — Van Jones

There are only two ways to have a middle class in your country: either you have highly skilled manufacturing jobs, or you have a highly skilled, well trained, knowledge-based workforce. In other words, college. — Van Jones

I am a proud Christian who has been greatly tutored by Hindus and Buddhists and Sufis and others, and I stand and I speak from that place. — Van Jones

I'm not going to let Donald Trump take away from our community, something that Fannie Lou Hamer shed blood to give us. Something that Ella Jo Baker braved conditions in the South and sweatshops in Harlem to give us. — Van Jones

The Trump phenomenon has a lot of really good stuff in it, the anti-elitism, the concern for America's economy in the Rust Belt, the desire to see better days for the country. That's all great stuff. Some of that stuff is Bernie Sanders stuff. The problem is that it's marbled through with xenophobia and misogyny and bigotry. — Van Jones

Now, here's a good question: should serious people focus on global political instability - terrorism, failing states, nuclear weapons - or should we focus on global climate instability - droughts, floods, extreme weather? Here's the correct answer: yes, both, because climate disruption will make every other national security problem worse. — Van Jones

With the Democrats, they see themselves, we see ourselves as the party of the working folks, the striving, you know, the good. But, without anybody acknowledging it, there is now this little camp of folks who come across as very elitist, that look down on red state voters, who think that Republicans are dumb people. — Van Jones

People are going to have to do a big reset. But this is a big wake-up call to the entire establishment, including the Democrats. And not just because of the failure. — Van Jones

Fighting for and defending the values from the pulpit is critical. You can't love the Creator, and disrespect the creation. — Van Jones

We know that urban farms require less fuel for tractors and transport, but community gardens don't plant themselves. — Van Jones

The human family has invaluable friends and irreplaceable allies in the plant and animal worlds. We cannot continue to tug at the web of life without tearing a hole in the very fabric of our earthly existence - and eventually falling through that hole ourselves. — Van Jones

Right now, the government is spending billions of dollars supporting the problem-makers in the U.S. economy - the polluters, despoilers, incarcerators, and warmongers. — Van Jones

There should be a moral principle there that says, let's green the ghetto first. Let's go to those communities where they have the least ability to pay for that retrofit and make sure they get that help, make sure they get that support. And give the young people standing on those corners the opportunity to put down those handguns and pick up some caulking guns and be a part of the solution. — Van Jones

All the signals that the Democratic Party is a party that tolerates snobbery and bigotry against, frankly, a lot of traditional Christians, a lot of white guys who work hard every day and who don't feel that they are on top of the world, those signals are clear and it's a turn off. — Van Jones

You've never seen a Columbine done by a black child. Never. They always say, 'We can't believe it happened here. We can't believe it's these suburban white kids.' It's only them! — Van Jones

Trust your intuition and be resilient. If you have real breakout ideas, even your friends will laugh at you secretly until you can prove their viability. — Van Jones

In America, we're in the middle of a cyberwar with Russia. — Van Jones

I had this radical idea that the police should obey the law. My view was that any human system without adequate checks and balances will tend towards corruption and abuse. That's why you have meat inspectors. Not because you hate butchers, but because of an understanding of human nature. — Van Jones

Now is not the time to shrink from the challenge of saving our only home in the universe. Now is not the time to pull into ourselves, retreating into either survivalist or escapist mode. To the contrary, this is the time for titans, not turtles. Now is the time to open our arms, expand our horizons, and dream big. Big problems require big solutions. — Van Jones

The main piece of technology in the green economy is a caulk gun. — Van Jones

In a democracy, you won't always get to have your way. But you should always get to have your say. — Van Jones

If we keep pulling death from the ground, we will reap death from the skies. — Van Jones

I am 100 percent on the side of insisting that white people step up to a different level of consciousness and commitment and the great gifts of the West and the great gifts of white culture and white community be used for a better purpose than this nonsense of supporting Trump. I insist on that. I refuse to accept that. I refuse to accept that we are going to give over 60 million people over to this guy. — Van Jones

I think that America could not become America until it dealt with the disenfranchisement of women and African Americans in the last century. It had to. America could not become America until it dealt with that. And did it deal with it perfectly? No. But it had to confront it. — Van Jones

The problem isn't that the green jobs aren't sexy enough. It's that they're not plentiful enough. A young person looking for a job isn't looking just for a sexy job, they're looking for any job. — Van Jones

Hatred of the people who hate you, that is the opposite of being the enemy. I want to fight fire with water wherever I can. — Van Jones

Environmentalists and clean energy champions should stop telling people that we are working for "sustainability," which nobody understands. — Van Jones

Apparently, the fossil-fuel industry's strategy is to convince the American people that we should just burn all the way through the last of our oil and coal reserves. — Van Jones

The progressives have a challenge. Part of it is that you now have a lot of progressives who feel that 50 million, 60 million people voted to endorse the toxic parts of Donald Trump, that suddenly we now are in a country, you know, surrounded by people who, you know, are proud to be, you know, a part of this alt-right thing and they think it was an alt-right takeover. — Van Jones

Mr. Vice President, the most fiscally conservative thing this government has ever done, is to invest massively in the green part of the recovery. Because those green dollars are the hardest working dollars in the history of American politics. That same dollar that is being used to cut energy bills, is also cutting global warming gas emissions, is also cutting unemployment, is also cutting poverty, through retrofits it's also raising the value of homes, is also by cleaning the air, cutting asthma rates. — Van Jones

The Russians have had and continue to have an active program to undermine American society. — Van Jones

The question is: do we pay a little bit more now? Or do we pay a whole lot later? For the equivalent of a postage stamp a day for each American, we can put a price on carbon today that will send a signal to private capital to invest in the clean technologies of tomorrow. Taking a vast portfolio of new energy solutions to scale will ultimately drive down costs through competition. — Van Jones

I want to be remembered as one of the great innovators among social justice advocates of the 21st Century. — Van Jones

If we stand for change, we can spark a popular movement with power, influence, magic and genius. — Van Jones

If all we are for is black people and white people who like black people, then I have nothing to say to Trump who is only for white people and black people who like him. — Van Jones

Steve Bannon is the biggest threat to democracy that we've faced since the Civil War, but in the Civil War the champion of democracy was in the White House. So, even then, we were probably in less danger as a country than we are right now. — Van Jones

We're now moving into a stage where the green economy isn't just going to be the place for people to spend money. It's going to become a place where a lot more people can earn money, and also save more money. These kind of solutions require collective action and government action. So as an advocate for government change, even somebody like me gets to have a role. — Van Jones

I am not, in fact, a superhero. Just a humble, mild-mannered civil rights attorney. — Van Jones

I said and stand by it. I said that race was a part, and there was a part, that alt-right part, that was a part of the whitelash. And if you listened to the whole quote, you would agree with what I said. — Van Jones

I think parenting is one of the most important jobs, because you can hit two or three generations with the values in your house and the traditions you establish. But I don't think I'm very good at it, and I don't know anybody who thinks they're very good at it. Probably almost everyone gets an A in grandparenting, but in parenting, if you get a B- you're doing pretty good. — Van Jones

I think the African American community, the Latino community, the Native American communities have borne an unfair burden in the last century, and continue to. — Van Jones

A family-friendly "eco-populism" can mobilize and unite millions who, at this point, would be turned off by a more extreme set of demands. The momentum will build, through these early efforts, for more comprehensive solutions. — Van Jones

Dirty energy is a finite resource; the more of it we use, the scarcer it becomes. — Van Jones

Playing the villain gets you higher ratings on reality TV and saying outrageous stuff on Twitter gets you more followers. — Van Jones

Government-mandated and -subsidized ethanol from corn will go down in history as the "Iraq War" of environmental solutions: ill-considered, costly, and disastrous. — Van Jones

The bombs the government drops in Iraq are the bombs that blew up in New York City. — Van Jones

I'm the first one in my family born with all my rights. I'm a ninth generation American. — Van Jones

The problem is that we didn't fight the way we should've fought. We made it be about [Donald Trump] and [Hillary Clinton] as opposed to making it be about us. If we had said this was a fight, not about "I'm with Her" but "I'm with Us" then maybe we would've had a different attitude toward her. — Van Jones

People in red states and blue states can agree that if we can fight pollution and poverty at the same time, letting people work their way out of poverty without undermining community health, we have a moral obligation to do so. — Van Jones

To the God in myself is probably the most honest answer. I think everybody has a divine destiny. — Van Jones

Basically, we all just had to live in the Trump reality television show, and now we're kind of stuck there for at least four years. Maybe eight. — Van Jones

Distorting attacks when people already don't trust you is not smart. — Van Jones

Let me say what I actually believe. I believe that 9/11 was a conspiracy, by Al Qaeda, and Osama Bin Laden, and no one else trying to hurt America. — Van Jones

The first few feet of sea-level rise alone will displace more than 100 million people worldwide and turn all our major Gulf and Atlantic coast cities into preKatrina New Orleans - below sea level and facing super-hurricanes. - Joseph Romm210. The generations living today get to retrofit, reboot, and reenergize a nation. We get to rescue and reinvent the U.S. economy. — Van Jones

You had a socialist get 47 percent of the votes in the Democratic primary: Bernie Sanders. You have an outright white nationalist populist [Donald Trump] who is now in the White House with an authoritarian strongman who has no regard for facts, no regard for tradition, and no regard for the Constitution. That is what you get when you import third world conditions. You get third world politics, and that's where we are now. — Van Jones

Donald Trump's a hell of a performer, he's a hell of an entertainer. If you put him on and let him say his crazy stuff, you're going to get a lot of viewers. If you take him off and have some sober discussion about what's going on in Syria, you're going to lose 80 percent of your audience. — Van Jones

The problem that we have in America now is, some people only see the positive stuff and wave off the toxic stuff, and some people only see the toxic stuff and wave off the positive stuff. You can't have an honest conversation. — Van Jones

We're going to do three things: teach-ins across the country so people can learn about each other's issues and causes; parties with a purpose so we can shake our butts and not let this man steal our joy; and we're going to do big concerts and revivals with some of the biggest artists in the world. If [Donald] Trump can have 20,000 people for big hate rallies then we can have 40,000 people in arenas for love rallies. — Van Jones

It is extremely disappointing to me to see that even now when leading Democrats and even military veterans try to make our energy future an area of common ground and not a battleground, they are still being rebuffed by dirty energy devotees in both parties and undermined overall by the polluter lobby. — Van Jones

Life Lessons by Van Jones

1. Van Jones' work highlights the importance of intersectionality in social justice work, emphasizing the need to address the intersecting issues of racism, poverty, and environmental justice.
2. He also emphasizes the importance of collaboration between communities and organizations, and the need to build bridges between different social movements.
3. Lastly, his work emphasizes the need for a holistic approach to social justice that considers the economic, social, and environmental implications of policy decisions.