That's the big mistake the environmental movement made - 'We'll scare the hell out of you, and you'll become an activist'.

I want to be a lawyer, a dancer, an actress, a mother, a wife, a children's author, a distance runner, a poet, a pianist, a pet store owner, an astronaut, an environmental and humanitarian activist, a psychiatrist, a ballet teacher, and the first woman president.

With increasing fervor since the 1980s, sustainability has been the watchword of scientists, environmental activists, and indeed all those concerned about the complex, fragile systems on the sphere we inhabit. It has shaped debates about business, design, and our lifestyles.

I see courage everywhere I go in Africa. Fearless human rights activists in Darfur. Women peace advocates in eastern Congo. Former child soldiers in Northern Uganda who now are helping other former child soldiers return to civilian life.

I see so many activists... who are artists because they feel that they have the power of communication.

Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world.

I joined the SDP as a founder member a few days after my 18th birthday in 1981. I was a councillor, activist and parliamentary candidate for the SDP and its successor party, the Liberal Democrats, for 14 years before joining Labour when Tony Blair became leader and abolished Labour's old clause IV - committing to general nationalisation - in 1995.

Being an activist is about getting things done. It's not about standing around shaking your fist in anger.

Most of self claimed activists . Are preaching sexism not equality. They want other people to be oppressed, not liberation of those whom they represent.

"Not all self claimed activists, are doing it for good cause.

"Jealous has made lot of people activists.

We modern human beings are looking at life, trying to make some sense of it; observing a 'reality' that often seems to be unfolding in a foreign tongue--only we've all been issued the wrong librettos. For a text, we're given the Bible. Or the Talmud or the Koran. We're given Time magazine, and Reader's Digest, daily papers, and the six o'clock news; we're given schoolbooks, sitcoms, and revisionist histories; we're given psychological counseling, cults, workshops, advertisements, sales pitches, and authoritative pronouncements by pundits, sold-out scientists, political activists, and heads of state. Unfortunately, none of these translations bears more than a faint resemblance to what is transpiring in the true theater of existence, and most of them are dangerously misleading. We're attempting to comprehend the spiraling intricacies of a magnificently complex tragicomedy with librettos that describe the barrom melodramas or kindergarten skits. And when's the last time you heard anybody bitch about it to the management?

I think the importance of doing activist work is precisely because it allows you to give back and to consider yourself not as a single individual who may have achieved whatever but to be a part of an ongoing historical movement.

I am a technological activist. I have a political agenda. I am in favor of basic human rights: to free speech to use any information and technology to purchase and use recreational drugs to enjoy and purchase so-called 'vices' to be free of intruders and to privacy.

Gay culture is surviving and thriving. Some activists believe the recent rise in homophobic violence might be a gauge of the success of positive gay images.

The activist is not the man who says the river is dirty. The activist is the man who cleans up the river.

People are always wondering if I am an artist or political activist or politician. Maybe I'll just clearly tell you: Whatever I do is not art. Let's say it is just objects or materials movies or writing but not art OK?

For us political activists and candidates the morning after any election is a mix of emotions - the personal and the immediate the culmination of your own recent campaigning efforts and the fortunes of your party and the success or otherwise of what you stand for and believe in.

We've got activists all across the country like the members of the Million Mom March organization some of their leaders are here tonight. We're phone banking congressional offices and pursuing editorial boards.

The activists will not stop in trying to impose their extreme views on the rest of us and they have now plotted out a state-by-state strategy to increase the number of judicial decisions redefining marriage without the voice of the people being heard.

President Bush has a record of cutting taxes has provided a prescription drug benefit for seniors has upheld the Second Amendment and remains committed to stopping liberal activists judges who are redefining marriage.

I guess because the shows were activist in their own way - the marriage of my public activism and my career activism you know - people understand me very well. They also understand there's a very strong bipartisan part in all of this.

While 45 of the 50 States have either a State constitutional amendment or a statute that preserves the current definition of marriage left-wing activist judges and officials at the local levels have struck down State laws protecting marriage.

On behalf of NARAL Pro-Choice America - and our one million member activists - I am honored to be here to talk to you about what's at stake for women in 2012. I am proud to say that the Democratic Party believes that women have the right to choose a safe legal abortion with dignity and privacy.