Advocacy is the lifeblood of change, the driving force behind many of the positive shifts we’ve seen in society.
Whether it’s advocating for social justice, environmental sustainability, or human rights, advocacy is about standing up and making your voice heard for the causes that matter.
It’s about uniting with others to create a ripple effect of positive change — one that transcends borders and demographics.
Advocates come from all walks of life — activists, artists, journalists, educators, and everyday people who decide to make a stand.
People like Malala Yousafzai, Nelson Mandela, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg have left indelible marks on the world through their advocacy, proving that one voice can indeed make a difference. But you don’t have to be famous to be an advocate; even small actions, when multiplied by millions, can lead to transformative change.
In this collection, we’ve curated some of the most impactful quotes about advocacy to inspire you to take action.
These words encapsulate the power of standing up for what you believe in and provide valuable perspectives on how advocacy shapes the world we live in.
Whether you’re a seasoned advocate or just getting started, these quotes will fuel your passion and remind you of the critical role advocacy plays in creating a better world for all.
Read on to become inspired and motivated to make your own positive difference:
You might also like: Best Quotes About Activism | Best Quotes About Making a Difference | Best Social Justice Quotes | Types of Activism
Explore These Advocacy Quotes
Famous Quotes
“I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.”
— Angela Davis
“We’re all citizens of this country, and we all have to use whatever platform we have to speak to the values that we believe in and things that we feel must happen.”
— Jane Fonda
“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world… would do this, it would change the earth.”
— William Faulkner
“You can not protect the environment unless you empower people, you inform them, and you help them understand that these resources are their own, that they MUST protect them.”
— Wangari Maathai
“When the world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.”
— Malala Yousafzai
“One of the most crucial kinds of intervention is in advocacy. We can think about charities in the context of delivering services, and indeed that is part of their job, but advocacy is also getting governments to step up to the plate. They can also give more voice to those who don’t have one.”
— Nicholas Kristof
“If you believe you can make a difference, not just in politics, in public service, in advocacy around all these important issues, then you have to be prepared to accept that you are not going to get 100 percent approval.”
— Hillary Clinton
“Saving our planet, lifting people out of poverty, advancing economic growth… These are one and the same fight. We must connect the dots between climate change, water scarcity, energy shortages, global health, food security, and women’s empowerment. Solutions to one problem must be solutions for all.”
— Emma Watson
“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
— Elie Wiesel
“To be an activist is to speak. To be an advocate is to listen. Society can’t move forward without both.”
— Eva Lewis
Self-Advocacy Quotes
“I learned a long time ago the wisest thing I can do is be on my own side, be an advocate for myself and others like me.”
— Maya Angelou
“When you doubt your power, you give power to your doubt.”
— Honore de Balzac
“In any given moment, we have two options: to step forward into growth or to step back into safety.”
— Abraham Maslow
“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”
— Andy Warhol
Environmental Advocacy Quotes
“My advocacy is based on the understanding that our environment is our inheritance, and we have to protect it or we face the consequences. We’d rather act now, as we can’t keep watching more people die as a result of climate change.”
— Nyombi Morris
“Personal action changes who we are, it changes people around us, and it can help us change the world. Greta Thunberg is the epitome of what I’m saying. She was, as many young people are, very anxious about climate change — and who wouldn’t be? So, she convinced her family to stop flying and they changed their diets. But if that was all they had done, nobody would ever know her name and the Fridays for Future strikes would not exist. She took a piece of cardboard, wrote on it, sat outside parliament, and changed the world.”
— Dolly Parton
“A very Faustian choice is upon us: whether to accept our corrosive and risky behavior as the unavoidable price of population and economic growth, or to take stock of ourselves and search for a new environmental ethic.”
— E. O. Wilson
“For children and young people, climate change is the single greatest threat to our futures. We are the ones who will have to clean up the mess you adults have made, and we are the ones who are more likely to suffer now.”
— Greta Thunberg, Adriana Calderon, Farzana Faruk Jhuma, and Eric Njuguna, in an article in The New York Times
“Raising awareness on the most pressing environmental issues of our time is more important than ever.”
— Leonardo DiCaprio
“Each of us can contribute, though. With our votes, our voices, our food choices, our skills and our dollars. We must overhaul both corporate practices and government policies. We must transform culture. Building community around solutions is the most important thing. I am never going to give up working to protect and restore this magnificent planet. Every bit of habitat we preserve, every tenth of a degree of warming we prevent, really does matter. Thankfully, I’m not motivated by hope, but rather a desire to be useful.”
— Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, in a TED Talk
“You cannot protect the environment unless you empower people, you inform them, and you help them understand that these resources are their own that they must protect.”
— Wangari Maathai
Mental Health Advocacy Quotes
“The experience I have had is that once you start talking about [experiencing a mental health struggle], you realize that actually you’re part of quite a big club.”
— Prince Harry
![“The experience I have had is that once you start talking about [experiencing a mental health struggle], you realize that actually you’re part of quite a big club.” — Prince Harry](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5f6cc9cd16d59d990c8fca33/64f5f5af60493cc6a475eaa3_advocacy-quotes-mental-health-1.jpg)
“Anyone can be affected, despite their level of success or their place on the food chain. In fact, there is a good chance you know someone who is struggling with it since nearly 20% of American adults face some form of mental illness in their lifetime. So why aren’t we talking about it?”
— Kristen Bell
“Be dedicated to change the way in which people see mental illness at all levels of society. If not for yourself, advocate for those who are struggling in silence.”
— Germany Kent
LGBTQ+ Advocacy Quotes
“LGBT people are some of the bravest and most potent change agents and leaders I have encountered, and the most forceful defenders of the vulnerable and voiceless because they know what it’s like to be there.”
— Ronan Farrow
“There are sharply different, competing models of what trans advocacy looks like — those that seek to follow the path laid out by the most visible and well-funded lesbian and gay rights organizations in the US and those that seek to use grassroots strategies, center issues of race and poverty, and aim to dismantle harmful institutions and conditions to redistribute life chances.”
— Dean Spade
“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.”
— Harvey Milk
“This community has fought and continues to fight a war of acceptance, a war of tolerance and the most relentless bravery. You are the definition of courage, do you know that?”
— Lady Gaga
Disability Advocacy Quotes
“We must be treated as equals — and communication is the way we can bring this about.”
— Louis Braille
“The ADA was a wonderful achievement. But it was only the tip of the iceberg. You can pass a law but until you can change society’s attitudes, that law won’t mean much.”
— Denise Sherer Jacobson
“Silence is the last thing the world will ever hear from me.”
— Marlee Matlin
“We need to make every single thing accessible to every single person with a disability.”
— Stevie Wonder
“People with disabilities are the largest minority in the world, and we are the most underrepresented in entertainment.”
— Maysoon Zayid
“If we are to achieve a richer culture, we must weave one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.”
— Margaret Mead
“We, the ones who are challenged, need to be heard. To be seen not as a disability, but as a person who has and will continue to bloom. To be seen not only as a handicap, but as a well intact human being.”
— Robert M. Hensel
“Part of the problem is that we tend to think that equality is about treating everyone the same, when it’s not. It’s about fairness. It’s about equity of access.”
— Judy Heumann
Inspiring Advocacy Quotes
“When enough people come together, then change will come and we can achieve almost anything. So instead of looking for hope — start creating it.”
— Greta Thunberg
“Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscious, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That’s the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.
“I believe that just as racism is systemic, because of centuries of oppression, sexism is systemic. A construct of the system. But the good news is that what has been constructed can be deconstructed. But to do that, you have to learn to recognize it, to question it, and to accept that the system must change.”
— Freida Pinto
“Unless someone truly has the power to say no, they never truly have the power to say yes.”
— Dan Millman
“Obviously these are some exceptional young people, but what they have in common is that they were ordinary people who cared. They wanted to act, to do something, to make life better for other people — and they have.”
— Morgan Carroll, Take Back Your Government: A Citizen’s Guide to Grassroots Change
“I’d like to provide information, inspiration, and access to whatever goods and services are needed to make it super easy for everyone to change their lifestyle to a sustainable one.”
— Daryl Hannah
“Every important change in our society, for the good, at least, has taken place because of popular pressure — pressure from below, from the great mass of people.”
— Edward Abbey
“The level of advocacy on behalf of others is a rarity — and sorely needed. The work of equality is the labor not of the few but the many, including those who have benefited and continue to benefit the most from an unequal system. Change that must take place on a broad social scale must be just that — broadly social. Everyone has their part to play. But it is not for advocates to occupy spaces intended for the very people they are fighting for.”
— Esi Edugyan, Out of the Sun: On Race and Storytelling
“If you want to become an instrument of change, gather people in your community and host a regular conversation. The only way to succeed is to connect people, share inspiration and support one another.”
— Deepak Chopra
Short Quotes
“Change what you can, manage what you can’t.”
— Raymond McCauley
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that really matter.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.
“My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.”
— Audre Lorde
“Struggle is a never-ending process. Freedom is never really won, you earn it and win it in every generation.”
— Coretta Scott King
“Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great, you can be that generation.”
— Nelson Mandela
“Openness may not completely disarm prejudice, but it’s a good place to start.”
— Jason Collins
“I don’t need easy. I just need possible.”
― Bethany Hamilton
More Quotes
“There must exist a paradigm, a practical model for social change that includes an understanding of ways to transform consciousness that are linked to efforts to transform structures.”
— bell hooks, Killing Rage: Ending Racism
“Our leaders should certainly engage passionate advocacy of needed reforms, and equally strong criticism of policies they believe are destructive to America. But, from the school boards to the White House, let’s elect more candidates who are committed to constructive dialogue and reasonable compromises.”
— Martin Luther King III
“By writing articles, opinion pieces, and letters to the editor, your reasonable, science-based arguments and personal stories can reach a massive audience and help counter misinformation.”
— Al Gore, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power
“When you get these jobs you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.”
— Toni Morrison
“Social networks are more than just repositories for trivial, snap judgments; they are more than merely convenient outlets for mindless joy and outrage. They offer more than the common ground and the solace we may find during culturally significant moments. Social networks also provide us with something of a flawed but necessary conscience, a constant reminder that commitment, compassion, and advocacy neither can nor ever should be finite.”
— Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist
“When an individual is protesting society’s refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him.”
— Bayard Rustin
“We have a right to protest for what is right. That’s all we can do. There are people hurting, there are people suffering, so we have an obligation, a mandate, to do something.”
— John Lewis
