It is learning how to stand alone, unpopular and sometimes reviled, and how to make common cause with those other identified as outside the structures, in order to define and seek a world in which we can all flourish. It is learning how to take our differences and make the strengths. For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.
— Audre Lorde
Fantastic Unpopular quotations
Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism, are all too frequently those who . . . ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism-the right to criticize, the right to hold unpopular beliefs, the right to protest, the right of independent thought.
You can only get really unpopular decisions through if the electorate is convinced of the value of the environment. That's what natural history programmes should be for.
Mr. Lincoln was not only a great President, but a great man - too great to be small in anything. In his company I was never in any way reminded of my humble origin, or of my unpopular color.
Political correctness is just tyranny with manners.
I wish for you the courage to be unpopular. Popularity is history's pocket change. Courage is history's true currency.
The right way is not always the popular and easy way.
Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character.
I am an unpopular electric eel set in a pond of goldfish.
My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.
The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man's right to his body, or woman's right to her soul.
The right to criticize: the right to hold unpopular beliefs;
the right to protest; the right of independent thought. The exercise of these rights should not cost one single American citizen his reputation or his right to a livelihood... Otherwise none of us could call our souls our own.
To solve big problems you have to be willing to do unpopular things.
Simplicity and elegance are unpopular because they require hard work and discipline to achieve and education to be appreciated.
I love agitation and investigation and glory in defending unpopular truth against popular error.
All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions.
All change is the result of a change in the contemporary state of mind.
There are many qualities that make a great leader.
But having strong beliefs, being able to stick with them through popular and unpopular times, is the most important characteristic of a great leader.
I am not eccentric. It's just that I am more alive than most people. I am an unpopular electric eel set in a pond of goldfish.
There is no greater compliment to the Jews than the fact that the degree of their unpopularity is always the scientific measure of the cruelty and silliness of the regime under which they live.
You will find that the truth is often unpopular and the contest between agreeable fancy and disagreeable fact is unequal. For, in the vernacular, we Americans are suckers for good news.
I have been unable to live an uncommitted or suspended life.
I have not hesitated to declare my affiliation with an extremely unpopular cause.
Sometimes, in order to follow our moral compass and/or our hearts, we have to make unpopular decisions or stand up for what we believe in.
Studies that bring clarity and direction to the black male situation as an integral part of the black family/community are unpopular, not easy to get published and very dangerous.
I realize that it is an unpopular and unhumanitarian position, for which I have been excoriated by 'liberal' colleagues, but I think Plessy v. Ferguson was right and should be re-affirmed.
I didn't mind being unpopular at school, because everyone else was a heathen.
Having been unpopular in high school is not just cause for book publications.
By not caring too much about what people think, I'm able to think for myself and propagate ideas which are very often unpopular. And I succeed.
Isn't it strange that I who have written only unpopular books should be such a popular fellow?
Sometimes, in order to follow our moral compass and/or our heart, we have to make unpopular decisions or stand up for what we believe in. It can be difficult and even frightening to go against the grain, whether it's a personal disagreement with a friend, partner, or family member or a professional decision that affects coworkers and colleagues.
In order for the State in the person of school officials to justify prohibition of a particular expression of opinion, it must be able to show that its action was caused by something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint.
Being unpopular is never easy; but being unpopular in a good cause is a shield against despair.
People who are not prepared to do unpopular things and defy the clamor of the multitude are not fit to be ministers in time of difficulty.
Great leaders are willing to retire unloved and unpopular as the price for great exertion.
As liberty of thought is absolute, so is liberty of speech, which is 'inseparable' from the liberty of thought. Liberty of speech, moreover, is essential not only for its own sake but for the sake of truth, which requires absolute liberty for the utterance of unpopular and even demonstrably false opinions.
The really important victory of the civil rights movement was that it made racism unpopular, whereas a generation ago at the turn of the last century, you had to embrace racism to get elected to anything.
Those whom God calls to such a ministry - and a call is essential - must be prepared for a pathway of unpopularity and misunderstanding. "You troubler of Israel" was the way Ahab addressed Elijah.
In every generation, the world is changed by a few people, who stand for something, do not fear unpopularity and dare to make a difference.