Harvey Milk Quotes

Hope will never be silent.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

It takes no compromise to give people their rights… it takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no political deal to give people freedom. It takes no survey to remove repression.

Politics is theater. It doesn’t matter if you win. You make a statement. You say, ‘I’m here, pay attention to me.’

All young people, regardless of sexual orientation or identity, deserve a safe and supportive environment in which to achieve their full potential.

If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.

It’s not my victory. It’s yours and yours and yours. If a gay can win, it means there is hope that the system can work for all minorities if we fight.

I ask for the movement to continue, for the movement to grow, because last week I got a phone call from Altoona, Pennsylvania, and my election gave somebody else, one more person, hope. And after all, that’s what this is all about. It’s not about personal gain, not about ego, not about power — it’s about giving those young people out there in the Altoona, Pennsylvanias, hope. You gotta give them hope.

Rights are won only by those who make their voices heard.

You must come out. Come out to your parents, your relatives.

I will not rest until this inequality is removed from our statute books.

We are coming out to fight the lies, the myths, the distortions. We are coming out to tell the truths about gays, for I am tired of the conspiracy of silence, so I’m going to talk about it. And I want you to talk about it. You must come out.

It’s not just the love we want to legalize, it’s the justness and fairness of love.

I know that you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. And you… and you… and you… gotta give ’em hope.

If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.

You must come out. Come out… to your parents… I know that it is hard and will hurt them but think about how they will hurt you in the voting booth!

Rights are won only by those who make their voices heard.

I will not rest until this inequality is removed from our statute books.

That’s what America is. Not just a country of 50 states filled with capitalist corporations, but a democracy filled with free people.

Burst down those closet doors once and for all, and stand up and start to fight.

All young people, regardless of sexual orientation or identity, deserve a safe and supportive environment in which to achieve their full potential.

You have to have hope. Hope is a concept that can exist even in the midst of turmoil and hardship.

We are all homosexuals; some of us just present that way.

I’m here to recruit you.

If a gay person can save a life by coming out, I owe it to the community to come out. I don’t do it for myself. Every gay person must come out. As difficult as it is, you must tell your immediate family. You must tell your relatives. You must tell your friends if indeed they are your friends. You must tell the people you work with. You must tell the people in the stores you shop in. Once they realize that we truly are everywhere, every myth, every lie, every innuendo will be destroyed once and for all.

You’ve got to elect gay people, so that thousand upon thousands like me need not exist, that’s our hope, and I know you will help us.

Let me have my rights, I don’t have yours.

It takes no compromise to give people their rights…it takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no survey to remove repressions.

The only thing I ask of you is that you be honest and open. If any of you are not ready for this, if you are here to obey your parents, to do what you are told, and to not have the commitment to humanity, then leave.

You must come out to your fellow politicians.

I would like to take this opportunity to bury the myth that everybody knows what homosexuality is — nobody knows what homosexuality is. Everybody’s afraid to admit that homosexuality is a disease. I think we should be a little more clear-cut.

If I turned around every time somebody called me a faggot, I’d be walking backward – and I don’t want to walk backward.

Gay people, we will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets.

It costs us every time somebody thinks a gay man should run to New York. It costs us every time somebody says, ‘Well, if they can’t make it here, let them go to San Francisco.’ It costs us every time a lesbian or gay man is forced to leave his or her hometown because the gay community, in its focus only on New York and San Francisco, has been lax in its duty to its own members.

I’m 40 years old. I haven’t lived a lifetime thinking about homosexuality. It’s incidental to me.

I will call you my brothers and my sisters.

I ask this for me [to come out] then. Pour me all the liquor in the house. I’ve come to conclusions that I am an alcoholic.

I respect all viewpoints.

The disease is homophobia.

Please do not flex your muscles at us.

If it’s to be a bridge, it must span from our lives to yours.

I never considered myself a powerful person. But I knew that I was a good person. And good people are powerful.

I cannot prevent anyone from getting AIDS, but I can tell them how to not get it.

We will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets.

Freedom’s own cultures and individuals must expand to support all kinds of differences; they cannot narrow and deny.

I’m telling my mother about you come to think of it.

Gays and lesbians, homosexuals, are not our enemy. We must fight homophobia, which seeks to destroy.

I respect the opinions of the people of Pennsylvania too much to engage in a bitter contest.

On this day, we remember that the world hasn’t changed much. But for a few of us here, it has changed entirely.

These identities alone are not enough. No single issue is enough. No singular vulnerability is enough.