"Evil doesn’t have to be an overt act; it can be merely the absence of good. If you have the ability, the resources, and the opportunity to do good and you do nothing, that can be evil." — Yvon Chouinard Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman
"To do good, you actually have to do something." — Yvon Chouinard American Express commercial
"You’re not gonna be able to reverse history—but you can change what the future looks like for sure." — Brandon Belcher For the Love of Climbing, Episode 17, "What We Know"
"When the situation is hopeless, there’s nothing to worry about." — Edward Abbey The Monkey Wrench Gang
"I have been called a curmudgeon, which my obsolescent dictionary defines as a ‘surly, ill-mannered, bad-tempered fellow’. Nowadays, curmudgeon is likely to refer to anyone who hates hypocrisy, cant, sham, dogmatic ideologies, and has the nerve to point out unpleasant facts and takes the trouble to impale these sins on the skewer of humor and roast them over the fires of fact, common sense, and native intelligence. In this nation of bleating sheep and braying jackasses, it then becomes an honor to be labeled curmudgeon." — Edward Abbey A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
"I think a lot of people really hate to admit it, but they start to think about how their past actions have contributed to this cycle of privilege or have possibly hurt people in the past—and they start to feel guilty about it. You know, unfortunately, instead of really slowing down and really trying to process these feelings and just hearing out the person who’s talking to them—instead of just slowing down and just shutting up for a second and listening, you know—they get really defensive. I think for a lot of folks, it’s like, they’re not denying that the privilege exists. I think, really they’re trying to defend themselves and say, 'I’m better than that.' Which is really unfortunate, ‘cause it’s supposed to be an educational moment. Right?" — Brandon Belcher For the Love of Climbing, Episode 17, "What We Know"
"We don’t need more condescending friction in humanity. We need less. One step in the direction of less societal friction is to seek commonalities. Another step, and one that is sorely needed, is respect." — James Hatch Medium, "My Semester wWith the Snowflakes"
"To me there is no dishonor in being wrong and learning. There is dishonor in willful ignorance and there is dishonor in disrespect." — James Hatch Medium, "My Semester With The Snowflakes"
"True peace is not merely the absence of tension. It is the presence of justice." — Martin Luther King Jr. Montgomery, Alabama, March 25, 1965
"We all stare at the same sky." — Unknown
"As our Funhog brother Yvon wrote in 2012 in The Responsible Company, 'Most fundamental changes start at the margins and move toward the center.' The question is whether the change reaches the center and affects the whole or gets lost in platitudes and inaction along the way." — Dick Dorworth Climbing Fitz Roy, 1968, "Viva los Funhogs"
"I don’t hate white people; I hate the system of white supremacy that gives them asymmetrical power and unmerited privilege. I don’t hate cops; I hate the pattern of police brutality that systematically harasses and kills black people and other people of color with impunity. I don’t hate soldiers; I hate the horror of war that terrorizes the most politically and economically vulnerable among us. I don’t hate rich people; I hate the system of capitalism that creates an elite one percent at the expense of the rest of us. It is precisely because of my love for humanity that I get enraged at systems that prevent people from flourishing and being free. It’s frustrating to see my righteous anger at unjust systems interpreted as hatred for individuals, but it’s more frustrating to see the oppressed suffer while those maladjusted to injustice remain silent. I won’t be silent. Silence is violence." — Nyle Fort
"Changing minds is not a movement. Critiquing racism is not activism. Changing minds is not activism. An activist produces power and policy change, not mental change." — Ibram Kendi How to Be an Antiracist
"This is the consistent function of racist ideas—and of any kind of bigotry more broadly: to manipulate us into seeing people as the problem, instead of the policies that ensnare them." — Ibram Kendi How to Be an Antiracist
"What’s the problem with being 'not racist'? It is a claim that signifies neutrality: 'I am not a racist, but neither am I aggressively against racism.' But there is no neutrality in the racism struggle. The opposite of ‘racist' isn’t 'not racist.' It is ‘antiracist.'" — Ibram Kendi How to Be an Antiracist
"Separation is not always segregation." — Ibram Kendi How to Be an Antiracist
