February 3 2023

50 Harvey Milk Quotes To Help Us Never Silence Hope

Yiannis Kalliantas Quotes democracy and civil rights, LGBTQ, quotes by a single personality

Harvey Bernard Milk (1930-1978) was one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States. Our carefully collected Harvey Milk quotes are a testament to his fight against discrimination.

He was born in a Lithuanian Jewish family. His grandfather helped organize the first synagogue in the suburb of Woodmere in New York City, where Harvey Milk himself was born. During his short career in office as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, he introduced a bill that prohibited discrimination in public accommodations, housing and employment on the grounds of sexuality. He also fought along with others for the right of gay teachers to continue working in California schools when Proposition 6 ballot initiative was introduced, which aimed to ban gay teachers and any gay rights supporter from being employed there.

After his election , Milk kept receiving death threats almost every day. He had recorded three tapes that were to be distributed publicly in the case of his assassination. Through them, he continued to preach hope and fight against injustice. He was assassinated in San Francisco City Hall on November 27, 1978. He was 47 years old.

Many people claim that he is the most significant openly LGBTQ politician in the US because he opened the way to many more LGBTQ people to run for office. He has become an icon in San Francisco and is considered a martyr in the gay community worldwide. In 2009, Harvey Milk was posthumously awarded with the medal of Freedom. The same year, the Harvey Milk Day was established in California, as a day of special significance for public schools. The law was signed by governor Arnold Schwarzenegger after the petition of gay activists, one year after the release of the award winning film Milk with Sean Penn.

Read on and share his words as an homage to his struggle for equal human rights, as well as in inspiration for gay and straight people seeking a better future.

Powerful Harvey Milk Quotes Make You Fight For Human Rights

Famous Harvey Milk Quotes about Rights, Communities and Hope
Inspirational Quotes From Harvey Milk
Outspoken Harvey Milk Movie Quotes
Insightful Harvey Milk Quotes About The Importance Of Coming Out

President Obama’s Speech during the Posthumous Award To Harvey Milk

Powerful Harvey Milk Quotes Make You Fight For Human Rights

Harvey Milk was not only an activist for gay rights but also an activist for elderly people, the handicapped and the marginalized. He strongly believed that the strength of a city lies in the strength of the neighborhoods.

Hope will never be silent. Harvey Milk
If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door. Harvey Milk

Rights are won only by those who make their voices heard. Harvey Milk
I have tasted freedom. I will not give up that which I have tasted. Harvey Milk
We will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets. Harvey Milk
Freedom is too enormous to be slipped under a closet door. Harvey Milk

I finally reached the point where I knew I had to become involved or shut up. Harvey Milk
Politics is theater. It doesn’t matter if you win. You make a statement. You say, “I’m here, pay attention to me.” Harvey Milk
Get out of the bars and into the streets! Harvey Milk
Let me have my tax money go for my protection and not for my prosecution. Let my tax money go for the protection of me. Harvey Milk

If I turned around every time somebody called me a faggot, I’d be walking backward – and I don’t want to walk backward. Harvey Milk
The events that started the American Revolution were the meetings in homes, pubs, on street corners. Harvey Milk
If I do a good job, people won’t care if I am green or have three heads. Harvey Milk
Worry about becoming a human being and not about how you can prevent others from enjoying their lives because of your own inability to adjust to life. Harvey Milk

Once you have dialogue starting, you know you can break down prejudice. Harvey Milk
Last week I got a phone call from Altoona, Pennsylvania, and the voice was young, my election gave one more young person, hope. Harvey Milk
All over the country, they’re reading about me, and the story doesn’t center on me being gay. It’s just about a gay person who is doing his job. Harvey Milk

Famous Harvey Milk Quotes about Rights, Communities and Hope

Some of the following quotes are taken from his speech known as “The Hope Speech” but we have also included more of his famous quotes alongside

I know you can’t live on hope alone. But without hope, life is not worth living. So you, and you and you: You got to give them hope. You got to give them hope! Harvey Milk
It takes no compromising to give people their rights. It takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no survey to remove repressions. Harvey Milk
All young people, regardless of sexual orientation or identity, deserve a safe and supportive environment in which to achieve their full potential. Harvey Milk
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. We’ve given them hope. Harvey Milk
If we wish to rebuild our cities, we must first rebuild our neighborhoods. Harvey Milk

To sit on the front steps — whether it’s a veranda in a small town or a concrete stoop in a big city — and to talk to our neighborhoods is infinitely more important than to huddle on the living-room lounger and watch a make-believe world in not-quite living color. Harvey Milk
Some people call me the unofficial mayor of Castro Street. Harvey Milk
I fully realize that a person who stands for what I stand for, an activist, a gay activist, becomes the target or the potential target for a person who is insecure, terrified, afraid, or very disturbed with themselves. Harvey Milk
I have always considered myself part of a movement, part of a candidacy. I considered the movement the candidate. I think that there’s a distinction between those who use the movement and those who are part of the movement. Harvey Milk

Inspirational Quotes From Harvey Milk

Gay or not, these inspirational quotes will instill hope and courage in your heart to help you dream a more just world for all.

All young people, regardless of sexual orientation or identity, deserve a safe and supportive environment in which to achieve their full potential. Harvey Milk
If you are not personally free to be yourself in that most important of all human activities… the expression of love… then life itself loses its meaning. Harvey Milk
The fact is that more people have been slaughtered in the name of religion than for any other single reason. That, that my friends, that is true perversion! Harvey Milk
All men are created equal. Now matter how hard they try, they can never erase those words. That is what America is about. Harvey Milk
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. Harvey Milk

I was born of heterosexual parents. I was taught by heterosexual teachers in a fiercely heterosexual society. Television ads and newspaper ads — fiercely heterosexual. A society that puts down homosexuality. And why am I a homosexual if I’m affected by role models? I should have been a heterosexual. Harvey Milk
We don’t want sympathetic liberals, we want gays to represent gays… I represent the gay street people-the 14-year-old runaway from San Antonio. We have to make up for hundreds of years of persecution. We have to give hope to that poor runaway kid from San Antonio. They go to the bars because churches are hostile. They need hope! They need a piece of the pie. Harvey Milk

Outspoken Harvey Milk Movie Quotes

Funny and punchy quotes from Gus Van Sant’s Film featuring Sean Penn, Josh Brolin and Emile Hirsch. With a 7,5 score and 173k reviews on Imdb, this 2008 film is absolutely recommended.

Harvey Milk: How do you teach homosexuality? Is it like French?
Harvey Milk: If it were true that children emulate their teachers, we’d have a lot more nuns running around.

Dan White: Society can’t exist without the family.
Harvey Milk: We’re not against that.
Dan White: Can two men reproduce?
Harvey Milk: No, but God knows we keep trying.
Harvey Milk: My name is Harvey Milk and I’m here to recruit you!
Harvey Milk: A homosexual with power… that’s scary.
Dan White: You have an issue.
Harvey Milk: It’s more than an issue. This is our life we’re fighting for.
Anne Kronenberg: My girlfriend says you guys don’t like women, I’m just asking: Is there a place for us in all this, or are you guys all scared of girls?
Harvey Milk: Okay, gentlemen: We’ve already got a tinkerbell, a lotus blossom, we’ve got Jim and Dick in their three-piece suits, we need someone to manage things, a woman this time. Plus, she’s the right price, and she’s got bigger balls than anyone else here.

Harvey Milk: I am here tonight to say that we will no longer sit quietly in the closet. We must fight. And not only in the Castro, not only in San Francisco, but everywhere the Anitas go. Anita Bryant did not win tonight, Anita Bryant brought us together! She is going to create a national gay force! And the young people in Jackson Mississippi, in Minnesota, in the Richmond, in Woodmere New York, who are hearing her on television, hearing Anita Bryant telling them on television that they are sick, they are wrong, there is no place in this great country for them, no place in this world, they are looking to us for something tonight, and I say, we have got to give them hope!
Harvey Milk: Anita Bryant has already said that the Jews and the Muslims are going to hell, so you know she has a shopping list.
Dianne Feinstein: As President of the Board of Supervisors it’s my duty to make this announcement: both Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk have been shot and killed.

Insightful Harvey Milk Quotes About The Importance Of Coming Out

Again, Milk’s “The Hope Speech” has been a source of inspiration, but more of his quotes have found their place in this section about letting people publicly know your sexual orientation.

Coming out is the most political thing you can do. Harvey Milk

Unless you have dialogue, unless you open the walls of dialogue, you can never reach to change people’s opinion. Harvey Milk
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 are indeed their children, that we are indeed everywhere, every myth, every lie, every innuendo will be destroyed once and all. And once you do, you will feel so much better. Harvey Milk
Burst down those closet doors once and for all, and stand up and start to fight. Harvey Milk
I cannot prevent anyone from getting angry, or mad, or frustrated. I can only hope that they’ll turn that anger and frustration and madness into something positive, so that two, three, four, five hundred will step forward, so the gay doctors will come out, the gay lawyers, the gay judges, gay bankers, gay architects I hope that every professional gay will say ‘enough’, come forward and tell everybody, wear a sign, let the world know. Maybe that will help. Harvey Milk
Gay brothers and sisters … 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. Harvey Milk

President Obama’s Speech during the Posthumous Award To Harvey Milk

In 2009 President Obama posthumously honored Harvey Milk with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian medal with the following speech:

Harvey Bernard Milk dedicated his life to shattering boundaries and challenging assumptions. As one of the first openly gay elected officials in this country, he changed the landscape of opportunity for the nation’s gay community. Throughout his life, he fought discrimination with visionary courage and conviction. Before his tragic death in 1978, he wisely noted, “Hope will never be silent,” and called upon Americans to stay true to the guiding principles of equality and justice for all. Harvey Milk’s voice will forever echo in the hearts of all those who carry forward his timeless message.

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