Civil Disobedience Quotes - Page 4

• That government is best which governs least.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Freedom, Democracies Have, Government

  Civil Disobedience (1849) See Ralph Waldo Emerson 29; O'Sullivan 1; Shipley 1

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• Civil disobedience's main goal typically is to try to arouse and inspire others to join and do something. Well, sometimes that is a good tactic, sometimes not.

  Noam Chomsky

  Goal, Inspire, Trying

  "Chomsky On The Prospect of Kurdish Independence". Interview with Namo Abdulla, chomsky.info. February 15, 2011.

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• Government is best which governs least

  Thomas Paine

  Freedom, Democracies Have, Government

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• f the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go; perchance it will wear smooth - certainly the machine will wear out... but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Government, Law, Let It Go

  "Civil Disobedience". Book by Henry David Thoreau, 1849.

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• 

  Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Song, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.27, Heron Dance Press

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• Civil disobedience is a viable political tactic, and a non-violent tactic.

  William Kunstler

  Political, Tactics, Violent

  Source: openvault.wgbh.org

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• Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Machines, Life Is, Friction

  Civil Disobedience (1849) See Savio 1

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• Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders . . . . and millions have been killed because of this obedience . . . .

  Howard Zinn

  People, Leader, World

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• Even when they call us mad, when they call us subversives and communists and all the epithets they put on us, we know we only preach the subversive witness of the Beatitudes, which have turned everything upside down.

  Oscar Romero

  Mad, Upside Down, Communist

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• If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

  Desmond Tutu

  Bullying, Justice, Sides

  "The secrets of a peacemaker". Interview with Gary Younge, www.theguardian.com. May 22, 2009.

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• If youre a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration.

  Al Gore

  Believe, Coal, Done

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• Civil disobedience does not admit of any violence or countenancing of violence directly or indirectly.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Doe, Violence, Disobedience

  Mahatma Gandhi (1967). “Collected Works”

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• Mass civil disobedience was for the attainment of independence.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Independence, Mass, Attainment

  Mahatma Gandhi (1980). “Collected Works”

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• [Putin] is a bully. And bullies only understand when we punch them in the nose, but we need to do that economically.

  Kelly Ayotte

  Leadership, Money, Reality

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• Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg apparently called President Obama directly to complain about NSA and how it spies on ordinary Americans. That's right, the guy who runs Facebook got mad at the NSA for spying on people. Talk about the pot unfriending the kettle!

  Jimmy Fallon

  Leadership, Running, Zuckerberg

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• An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so. Now the law of nonviolence says that violence should be resisted not by counter-violence but by nonviolence. This I do by breaking the law and by peacefully submitting to arrest and imprisonment.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Spiritual, Law, Unjust

  Mahatma Gandhi, Thomas Merton (1965). “Gandhi on Non-violence”, p.71, New Directions Publishing

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• The first principle of non-violent action is that of non-cooperation with everything humiliating.

  Cesar Chavez

  Peace, Humanity, Principles

  Cesar Chavez (2008). “An Organizer's Tale: Speeches”, p.352, Penguin

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• A dog can bite you but you must not bite the dog! Your every movement in life must be peaceful; otherwise you lose your ethical superiority! Nonviolent civil disobedience is a genius; no power can beat it; use it when necessary!

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Life, Dog, Peaceful

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• I'm absolutely, utterly, and completely certain that God wouldn't be homophobic. I'd much rather go to hell - I really would much rather go to hell - than go to a homophobic heaven.

  Desmond Tutu

  Leadership, Wisdom, Class

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• Marches work, rallies work, civil disobedience works, direct action works, voting works, writing letters works, speaking to churches and schools works, rioting works.

  Cleve Jones

  Writing, School, Direct Action

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• I was at a meeting two years ago in Beijing, and I passed a bunch of women who were marching in a protest. Their signs were probably saying something I wouldn't have agreed with at all. But I was so glad to see women marching. And it's happening all over the world.

  Betty Friedan

  Two, Years, World

  "Work and life: The search for balance" by Porter Anderson, www.cnn.com. January 29, 2001.

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• Civil disobedience is the only nonviolent escape from the soul-destroying heat of violence.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Soul, Violence, Heat

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• Civil disobedience is not only the natural right of a people, especially when they have no effective voice in their own Government, but that it is also a substitute for violence or armed rebellion.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Government, Voice, People

  Mahatma Gandhi (1971). “Collected Works”

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• Civil disobedience is the core of American defiance against kings and emperors.

  Ted Nugent

  Kings, Defiance, Emperor

  Source: saynsumthn.wordpress.com

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• All political movements are like this - we are in the right, everyone else is in the wrong. The people on our own side who disagree with us are heretics, and they start becoming enemies. With it comes an absolute conviction of your own moral superiority. There's oversimplification in everything, and a terror of flexibility.

  Doris Lessing

  Party, Reality, People

  "A Notorious Life". Interview with Dwight Garner, www.salon.com. November 11, 1997.

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