James Wood:
Social activism is a form of love in action. If you base your activism in a value judgment – e.g., that the world is “messed up” – you will only create more pain in the world.
As far as social activism is concerned, just liberate yourself and trust what happens. Human rights arise from the true heart of all morality, the conscious human being. The more awake you are in the world, the more just, righteous, and fair your actions are. Anger does not produce positive social change. Liberation does. Anger just makes you harder, meaner and more afraid. Negativity in any form is not necessary for vigorous action that, in its own way, subverts an unjust social order.
– The Path of Awakening (2007) p. 110
Vernon Howard:
If you straighten yourself out, if you are no longer putting out hostility or deception, then you are putting out something that is helpful, therefore that is the only thing you can do to help society… Your anger is the cause of war.
-The Esoteric Path to a New Life MP3 CD, “A revealing interview with Vernon Howard”
Byron Katie:
Just as we use stress and fear to motivate ourselves to make money, we often rely on anger and frustration to move us to social activism. If I want to act sanely and effectively while I clean up the earth’s environment, let me begin by cleaning up my own environment. All the trash and pollution in my thinking- let me clean that up, by meeting it with love and understanding. Then my action can become truly effective. It takes just one person to help the planet. That one is you.
-Loving What Is (2003) p. 107-108 and here is an additional excerpt on activism from A Thousand Names for Joy (2007)
Franklin Merrell-Wolff:
This view is not merely altruism in the usual meaning of the word, for in the latter sense, altruism involves a difference between one’s own self and others… I Recognize more in every man’s Recognition. I am delayed by every man’s failure. Every new facet opened by another individual man breaking through is a new facet awakened in My understanding. Thus, from this standpoint, the duality of selfishness and altruism is destroyed.
-Experience and Philosophy (1994) p.91
Svaha 
Beautiful quotes!
What is society? What is the institution? Where are the power structures? Who are the oppressors? All of these words refer to – a lot of individuals.
This reminded me of something from Sam Harris:
We should not lose sight of the fact that societies do not suffer; people do.
I find it helpful to ask myself “What is benefiting more? A person, or an idea?”
Yes! Nel Noddings says something like – ideas and ideals do not care, people do.
But it’s so much safer to just talk about ideas… and not look at our own personal contributions – frustration, fear, anger, etc.
The best example of a spiritual leader that was a social and political activist is Mahatma Gandhi.
I like the translation of Satyagraha, that Gandhi used – ‘truth force’
Yes, Satyagraha!
“Only those who realize that there is something in man which is superior to the brute nature in him, and that the latter always yields to it, can effectively be passive. This force is to violence and, therefore, to all tyranny, all injustice, what light is to darkness.”