Dissent Quotes - Page 6

• ... feminist solidarity rooted in a commitment to progressive politics must include a space for rigorous critique, for dissent, orwe are doomed to reproduce in progressive communities the very forms of domination we seek to oppose.

  Bell Hooks

  Commitment, Space, Feminist

  bell hooks (2012). “Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations”, p.78, Routledge

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• These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  America, Liberty, Complaining

  Franklin D. Roosevelt's Speech at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June 27, 1936.

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• The citizen who sees his society's democratic clothes being worn out and does not cry it out, is not a patriot, but a traitor.

  Mark Twain

  Clothes, Liberty, Doe

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• I wish I could say that racism and prejudice were only distant memories... We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the fear, the hatred and the mistrust... We must dissent because America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better.

  Thurgood Marshall

  Memories, Powerful, America

  Thurgood Marshall's acceptance speech for the Liberty Medal at the Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, genius.com. July 4, 1992.

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• Democracy is no easy form of government. Few nations have been able to sustain it. For it requires that we take the chances of freedom; that the liberating play of reason be brought to bear on events filled with passion; that dissent be allowed to make its appeal for acceptance; that men chance error in their search for the truth.

  Robert Kennedy

  Passion, Acceptance, Men

  Robert F. Kennedy (1998). “Make Gentle the Life of the World: The Vision of Robert F. Kennedy”, Harcourt

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• It was in the 1960s that the left convinced itself that there is something fascistic about patriotism and something perversely "patriotic" about running down America. Anti-Americanism - a stand-in for hatred of Western civilization - became the stuff of sophisticates and intellectuals as never before. Flag burners became the truest "patriots" because dissent - not just from partisan politics, but the American project itself - became the highest virtue.

  Jonah Goldberg

  Running, Patriotic, America

  Jonah Goldberg (2008). “Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning”, p.197, Crown Forum

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• If I were to remain silent, I'd be guilty of complicity.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Guilty

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• Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.

  Richard Lindzen

  Lying, Climate, Gains

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• The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

  Desmond Tutu

  Memorial Day, Peace, Freedom

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• Radical views that are outside the mainstream generally (but not always) are more reliable than the dominant view because they are more regularly challenged and tested against evidence. They do not get to float freely down the mainstream; they must swim against the current. They cannot rest on the orthodox power to foreclose dissent, and they are not supported by the unanimity of bias that passes for objectivity.

  Michael Pare

  Views, Objectivity, Political

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• To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

  Barack Obama

  Hands, Deceit, Fists

  First Presidential Inaugural Address, Delivered 20 January 2009

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• Dissent... is a right essential to any concept of the dignity and freedom of the individual; it is essential to the search for truth in a world wherein no authority is infallible.

  Norman Thomas

  President, Essentials, World

  "The Quotable Rebel" by Teishan Latner, p. 360., 2005.

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• Dissents speak to a future age. It's not simply to say, 'My colleagues are wrong and I would do it this way.' But the greatest dissents do become court opinions and gradually over time their views become the dominant view. So that's the dissenter's hope: that they are writing not for today but for tomorrow.

  Ruth Bader Ginsburg

  Writing, Views, Freedom Of Speech

  Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Wendy W. Williams (2016). “My Own Words”, p.349, Simon and Schuster

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• Lonely dissent doesn't feel like going to school dressed in black. It feels like going to school wearing a clown suit.

  Eliezer Yudkowsky

  Lonely, School, Black

  "Lonely Dissent". lesswrong.com. December 28, 2007.

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• Well, dissent is the tradition in America, and I've been on the side of dissent a good bit of my career, particularly in the last many years of the Republican Congress.

  Lloyd Doggett

  Years, Careers, America

  "Interview with Rep. Lloyd Doggett". "The Situation Room" with Wolf Blitzer, www.realclearpolitics.com. August 6, 2009.

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• Free inquiry entails recognition of civil liberties as integral to its pursuit, that is, a free press, freedom of communication, the right to organize opposition parties and to join voluntary associations, and freedom to cultivate and publish the fruits of scientific, philosophical, artistic, literary, moral and religious freedom.

  Paul Kurtz

  Religious, Party, Communication

  Paul Kurtz (1983). “In defense of secular humanism”, Prometheus Books

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• America can restore its strengths as the world-respected land of opportunity by returning to open-society principles. An open society invests in people and new ideas, rewards talent and hard work, values dialogue and learns from dissent, operates to high standards with transparent information, looks for common ground, sees problems as opportunities for creative change, and encourages those who are fortunate to help others get the same chance, because service is the highest ideal. With such standards in mind, America the Beautiful can return to its admired role as America the Principled.

  Rosabeth Moss Kanter

  Beautiful, Hard Work, Helping Others

  Rosabeth Moss Kanter (2007). “America the Principled: 6 Opportunities for Becoming a Can-Do Nation Once Again”, p.8, Crown Business

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• History shows that the mere existence of a mass surveillance apparatus, regardless of how it is used, is in itself sufficient to stifle dissent. A citizenry that is aware of always being watched quickly becomes a compliant and fearful one.

  Glenn Greenwald

  Political, Surveillance, Used

  Glenn Greenwald (2014). “No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the Surveillance State”, p.10, Penguin UK

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• On religion in particular, the time appears to me to have come, when it is a duty of all who, being qualified in point of knowledge, have, on mature consideration, satisfied themselves that the current opinions are not only false, but hurtful, to make their dissent known.

  John Stuart Mill

  Hurtful, Opinion, Mature

  John Stuart Mill (2015). “Autobiography John Stuart Mill: Top Biography”, p.20, 谷月社

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• It then becomes necessary to stop short and make a choice: Either/Or. Either one drifts with their absurd system of ideas, believing that this is the human community. Or one dissents totally from their system of ideas and stands as a lonely human being. (But luckily one notices that the others are in the same crisis and making the same choices.)

  Paul Goodman

  Lonely, Believe, Ideas

  Paul Goodman (2011). “Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized Society”, p.124, New York Review of Books

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• ...dissent, protest, presures of a wide variety that escape elite control can modify the calculus of costs of planners, and offer a slight hope that Washington can be compelled to permit at least some steps towards "justice, freedom and democracy" within its domains.

  Noam Chomsky

  Justice, Democracy, Cost

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• Have them all shot. I don't want any of my workers dissatisfied.

  Charlie Chaplin

  Want, Despotism, Shots

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• Many CEOs and leaders think that silence is indeed golden, that consensus is bliss. It is - sometimes. But more often what it signifies is that there are no respected processes for surfacing concerns and dissent.

  Margaret Heffernan

  Thinking, Leader, Silence

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• An effort to declare the ban on contraception ‘infallible’ would have the immediate effect of focusing Catholic dissent on the doctrine of infallibility itself. . . . A storm of dissent, and even ridicule, directed at infallibility itself would ensue from such a declaration.

  Rosemary Radford Ruether

  Effort, Catholic, Storm

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• Decision has greater virtue and force if taken after there has been eloquent dissent.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Taken, Decision, Virtue

  John Kenneth Galbraith (2001). “Name-Dropping: From FDR On”, p.186, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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