Dissent Quotes - Page 2

• Free societies are societies in which the right of dissent is protected.

  Natan Sharansky

  Literature, Protected, Free Society

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• One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Religious, Responsibility

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2011). “Why We Can't Wait”, p.60, Beacon Press

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• Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent, and debate.

  Hubert H. Humphrey

  Government, President, Anvils

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• Mere unorthodoxy or dissent from the prevailing mores is not to be condemned. The absence of such voices would be a symptom of grave illness to our society.

  Earl Warren

  War, Voice, Justice

  Earl Warren (1959). “The Public Papers of Chief Justice Earl Warren”

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• Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Wise, Spiritual, Silence

  Mahatma Gandhi, Thomas Merton (1965). “Gandhi on Non-violence”, p.58, New Directions Publishing

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• 

  If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.

  John Stuart Mill

  Freedom, Philosophy, Differences

  On Liberty ch. 2 (1859)

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• We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.

  Edward R. Murrow

  Peace, War, Teaching

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• To announce that there must be no criticism of the president... is morally treasonable to the American public.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Peace, War, Freedom Of Speech

  Theodore Roosevelt (2012). “In the Words of Theodore Roosevelt: Quotations from the Man in the Arena”, p.146, Cornell University Press

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• Has there ever been a society which has died of dissent? Several have died of conformity in our lifetime.

  Jacob Bronowski

  Liberty, Conformity, Lifetime

  "Science and Human Values". Book by Jacob Bronowski, 1956.

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• The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, War, Patriotic

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence 1786-1787”, p.263, Cosimo, Inc.

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• If, even as the price to be paid for a fifth vote, I ever joined an opinion for the Court that began: 'The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity,' I would hide my head in a bag. The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.

  Antonin Scalia

  Rights, Fortune Cookie, Gay Marriage

  "This Scalia Zinger Is the Funniest Footnote to Come Out of the Supreme Court This Term" by Shane Ferro, www.businessinsider.com. June 26, 2015.

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• The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

  John Stuart Mill

  Opportunity, Errors, Race

  John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Troyer (2003). “The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill”, p.163, Hackett Publishing

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• A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority.

  Eric Hoffer

  Liberty, Majority, Minorities

  "Reflections on the Human Condition". Book by Eric Hoffer, 1973.

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• The right to dissent is the only thing that makes life tolerable for a judge of an appellate court... the affairs of government could not be conducted by democratic standards without it.

  William O. Douglas

  Government, Judging, Liberty

  "America Challenged". Book by William O. Douglas, 1960.

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• In the end it is worse to suppress dissent than to run the risk of heresy.

  Learned Hand

  Running, Risk, Ends

  Oliver Wendell Holmes lecture at Harvard in 1958. "The Rhetoric of Our Times" by J. Jeffery Auer, p. 124, 1969.

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• Dissents are appeals to the brooding spirit of the law, to the intelligence of another day.

  Charles Evans Hughes

  Law, Liberty, Another Day

  "Keeping Politics out of the Court". The New York Times, December 09, 1984.

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• So now is the time, more than ever, for those who truly value all the principles of democracy, especially including dissent, to be the most forceful in speaking up, standing up and speaking out.

  Jim Hightower

  Speaking Up, Democracy, Principles

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• The rightful claim to dissent is an existential right of the individual.

  Friedrich Durrenmatt

  Existentialism, Individual, Claims

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• Patriotism is usually the refuge of the scoundrel. He is the man who talks the loudest.

  Mark Twain

  Men, Patriotism, Ethics

  Mark Twain, Caroline Thomas Harnsberger (2009). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.350, Courier Corporation

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• The beginning of thought is in disagreement - not only with others but also with ourselves.

  Eric Hoffer

  Disagreement

  Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

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• To allow the policy question of same-sex marriage to be considered and resolved by a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine is to violate a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation: no social transformation without representation.

  Antonin Scalia

  Sex, Decision, Gay Marriage

  "Who is Antonin Scalia and why is he out of touch with changing social views?" by Dan Roberts, www.theguardian.com. December 12, 2015.

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• When a man fails to see the truth of certain generally accepted views, there is no law compelling him to provoke animosity by announcing his dissent.

  George Henry Lewes

  Men, Views, Law

  George Henry Lewes (1891). “The Principles of Success in Literature”

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• People may believe that there can be a society where dissent is not permitted, but which is nonetheless not a fear society because everyone agrees with one another and therefore no one wants to dissent.

  Natan Sharansky

  Believe, People, Literature

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• Who ever thought that intimacy and spirituality [whatever that means] were freedoms? And if intimacy is, one would think Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expanded by marriage. Ask the nearest hippie.

  Antonin Scalia

  Hippie, Mean, Thinking

  Antonin Scalia (2016). “Scalia's Court: A Legacy of Landmark Opinions and Dissents”, p.187, Regnery Publishing

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• We may be so eager to protect the right to dissent that we lose sight of the difference between dissent and subversion.

  Richard Perle

  Sight, Differences, May

  David Frum, Richard Perle (2003). “An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror”, p.66, Random House

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