Direct Action Quotes - Page 2

• I believe it's time for direct action on climate change, standing together as ordinary Australians to take control of our shared future.

  David Pocock

  Change, Believe, Together

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• We decided to set our direct-action program around the Easter season, realizing that, with exception of Christmas, this was the largest shopping period of the year. Knowing that a strong economic withdrawal program would be the by-product of direct action.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Easter, Strong

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.88, Beacon Press

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• I have examined the death penalty under each of its two aspects: as a direct action, and as an indirect one. What does it come down to? Nothing but something horrible and useless, nothing but a way of shedding blood that is called a crime when an individual commits it, but is sadly called "justice" when society brings it about. Make no mistake, you lawmakers and judges, in the eyes of God as in those of conscience, what is a crime when individuals do it is no less an offense when society commits the deed.

  Victor Hugo

  Mistake, Eye, Two

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• Anarchism...stands for direct action, the open defiance of, and resistance to, all laws and restrictions, economic, social, and moral.

  Emma Goldman

  Law, Anarchy, Resistance

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• The Virgin filled so enormous a space in the life and thought of the time that one stands now helpless before the mass of testimony to her direct action and constant presence in every moment and form of the illusion which men thought they thought their existence.

  Henry Adams

  Men, Space, Illusion

  Henry Adams (1986). “Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres”, p.237, Penguin

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• We are a representative democracy. But how did we get there? We got there through direct action. And that's enshrined in our Constitution and in our values.

  Edward Snowden

  Democracy, Constitution, Representatives

  Source: www.thenation.com

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• Totalitarianism extends to whatever touches it...psychological technique, as it operates in the army or in a great industrial plant, entails a direct action on the family. It involves a psychological adaptation of family life to military or industrial methods, supervision of family life, and training family life for military or industrial service. Technique can leave nothing untouched in a civilization. Everything is its concern. Technique, which is destroying all other civilizations, is more than a simple mechanism: it's a whole civilization in itself.

  Jacques Ellul

  Military, Army, Technology

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• We who in engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Alive, Surface, Protest

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2011). “Why We Can't Wait”, p.62, Beacon Press

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• Education without direction is a one-sided social value. Direct action without education is a meaningless expression of pure energy.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Social Values, Expression, Energy

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• Strike is always a form of direct action. With the strike, too, you are not asking government to make things easier for you by passing legislation, you are taking a direct action against the employer.

  Howard Zinn

  Government, Asking, Strikes

  "Rebels Against Tyranny". Interview with Ziga Vodovnik, www.counterpunch.org. May 12, 2008.

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• Change from below, the formulation of demands from the populace to end unacceptable injustice, supported by direct action, has played a far larger part in shaping British democracy than most constitutional lawyers, political commentators, historians or statesmen have ever cared to admit. Direct action in a democratic society is fundamentally an educational exercise.

  Tony Benn

  Educational, Exercise, Political

  "New Politics" Magazine, 1970.

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• Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends... ...when millions are slaughtered, when torture is practiced, starvation enforced, oppression made a policy, as at present over a large part of the world, and as it has often been in the past, it must be at the behest of very many good people, and even by their direct action, for what they consider a worthy object.

  Isabel Paterson

  Past, Omission, Long

  Isabel Paterson (1993). “God of the Machine”, p.235, Transaction Publishers

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• We had no alternative except that of preparing for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and national community.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Mean, Community

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2011). “Why We Can't Wait”, p.57, Beacon Press

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• We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly I have never yet engaged in a direct action movement that was 'well timed,' according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word 'Wait!' It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This 'wait' has almost always meant 'never.' We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that 'justice too long delayed is justice denied.'

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Years, Painful Experiences, Yesterday

  Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘Letter From Birmingham Jail’, www.theatlantic.com. April 16, 1963.

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• The political superstition is still holding sway over the hearts and minds of the masses, but the true lovers of liberty will have no more to do with it. Instead, they believe with Stirner that man has as much liberty as he is willing to take. Anarchism therefore stands for direct action, the open defiance of, and resistance to, all laws and restrictions, economic, social, and moral. But defiance and resistance are illegal. Therein lies the salvation of man. Everything illegal necessitates integrity, self-reliance and courage.

  Emma Goldman

  Integrity, Lying, Believe

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism: Top Crime Collections”, p.36, 谷月社

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• If not for the direct action of a John Brown and his comrades, America would still trade in the flesh of the black man.

  Emma Goldman

  Men, America, Black

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism and Other Essays”, p.44, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• Cryptography is the ultimate form of non-violent direct action.

  Julian Assange

  Cryptography, Violent, Form

  "Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet". Book by Julian Assange, November 2012.

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• Causes was founded with the mission of empowering anyone to change the world. Our model is based upon the belief that everyone has the power to have an outsized impact on the world by banding together with other like-minded individuals, taking direct action, and inspiring their friends and their friends' friends to join in.

  Joe Greene

  Impact, Empowering, Together

  "New Facebook Changes Will Help You Change the World" by Joe Green, www.huffingtonpost.com. September 23, 2011.

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• What I say is, that the real non-resistants can believe in direct action only, never in political action. For the basis of all political action is coercion; even when the State does good things, it finally rests on a club, a gun, or a prison, for its power to carry them through.

  Voltairine de Cleyre

  Real, Believe, Gun

  Voltairine de Cleyre (2012). “Exquisite Rebel: The Essays of Voltairine de Cleyre -- Anarchist, Feminist, Genius”, p.275, SUNY Press

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• When that devil's bullet lodged itself inside the body of Martin Luther King, he had already begun an astonishing mobilization of poor, Black, white, latino Americans who had nothing to lose. They would challenge our government to eliminate exploitative, merciless, and war-mongering policies, nationwide, or else "tie up the country" through "means of civil disobedience." Dr. King intended to organize those legions into "coercive direct actions" that would make of Babylon a dysfunctional behemoth begging for relief. Is it any wonder he was killed?

  June Jordan

  Country, Kings, War

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• In no way have we contemplated the intervention of the army in tasks that belong to police at the different levels of government. What is contemplated .. is support from the army in these tasks but not in direct actions that correspond to municipal, state and federal police.

  Ruben Aguilar

  Army, Government, Support

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• A grand and almost untrodden field of inquiry will be opened, on the causes and laws of variation, on correlation of growth, on the effects of use and disuse, on the direct actions of external conditions, and so forth.

  Charles Darwin

  Law, Growth, Fields

  Charles Darwin, James T. Costa (2009). “The Annotated Origin: A Facsimile of the First Edition of On the Origin of Species”, p.486, Harvard University Press

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• It is our experience that the nation doesn't move around questions of genuine equality for the poor and for black people until it is confronted massively, dramatically in terms of direct action.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Moving, People, Black

  "Blacklivesmatter protests shut down major highway in Boston, 29 arrested" by Adam Fleischer, www.mtv.com. January 15, 2015.

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• For the child whose impulsiveness is indulged, who retains his primitive-discharge mechanisms, is not only an ill-behaved child but a child whose intellectual development is slowed down. No matter how well he is endowed intellectually, if direct action and immediate gratification are the guiding principles of his behavior, there will be less incentive to develop the higher mental processes, to reason, to employ the imagination creatively. . . .

  Selma Fraiberg

  Children, Guiding Principles, Imagination

  Selma H. Fraiberg (2015). “The Magic Years: Understanding and Handling the Problems of Early Childhood”, p.157, Simon and Schuster

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