Political Violence Quotes

• I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Inspirational, Peace, War

  Mahatma Gandhi, Dennis Dalton (1996). “Gandhi: Selected Political Writings”, p.43, Hackett Publishing

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• Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

  John F. Kennedy

  Inspirational, Peace, Freedom

  Address on first anniversary of Alliance for Progress, 13 Mar. 1962

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• Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Peace, Revenge, Men

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.115, Beacon Press

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• Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political moral questions of our time.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Peace, Political, Foundation Of Love

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.115, Beacon Press

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• When we use the word domestic [terrorism], we discount its actual impact as political terrorism, which is, of course, political violence meant to impact an audience outside of the immediate victims.

  Malcolm Wrightson Nance

  Impact, Political, Use

  Source: www.msnbc.com

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• The real political task in a society such as ours is to criticize the workings of institutions that appear to be both neutral and independent, to criticize and attack them in such a manner that the political violence that has always exercised itself obscurely through them will be unmasked, so that one can fight against them.

  Michel Foucault

  Real, Independent, Fighting

  Noam Chomsky, Michel Foucault (2006). “The Chomsky - Foucault Debate: On Human Nature”, p.41, The New Press

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• It seems to me that the real political task in a society such as ours is to criticise the workings of institutions, which appear to be both neutral and independent; to criticise and attack them in such a manner that the political violence which has always exercised itself obscurely through them will be unmasked, so that one can fight against them.

  Michel Foucault

  Real, Independent, Fighting

  Source: www.nicklewis.org

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• Looked at objectively, it is clear that the overwhelming majority of civilian deaths resulting from political violence are produced by what should be understood as "state terror." Terrorism also serves as an excuse to avoid diplomacy and the peaceful resolution of conflict.

  Richard A. Falk

  Political, Peaceful, Majority

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• The piled-up dead of political violence are a generic staple of our information diet these days, and according to the generic report all massacres are created equal: the dead are innocent, the killers monstrous, the surrounding politics insane or nonexistent...The anonymous dead and their anonymous killers become their own context. The horror becomes absurd.

  Philip Gourevitch

  Political, Insane, Information

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• More people died as a result of the tiny abortive Easter Uprising against British rule in Ireland (1916) than died as a result of political violence in Germany during the entire National Socialist revolution.

  Adolf Hitler

  Easter, Uprising, People

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• Increasingly gang violence and organized crime, together with climate change-driven natural disasters, are displacing more people as wars are fewer on the continent and political violence has decreased considerably, the NRC has decided to treat this as a humanitarian crisis.

  Jan Egeland

  Change, War, People

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• It was a step forward to charge Pinochet with terrorism, and to acknowledge that the essence of the crime is the use of political violence to induce great fear in society and against those who are innocent, and not just such violence that is directed against the state by opposition groups.

  Richard A. Falk

  Essence, Political, Violence

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• I was grateful for the opportunity to make a difference. The political violence really started in 1970-1971. The political difficulties start a little bit beyond that.

  John Hume

  Grateful, Opportunity, Differences

  "Ireland's Champion of Civil Rights". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 8, 2002.

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• In college I studied '60s and '70s radicalism, student activism, forms of political violence, groups like the Weathermen, the Black Panthers, the Symbionese Liberation Army, the New Left.

  Marisha Pessl

  Army, College, Political

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• I mean I grew up in Ireland, so one would have to be consciously blinkered not to have reflected on the issue of political violence because that was the story since I was 19 years old or 20.

  Neil Jordan

  Mean, Years, Issues

  Interview with with Michael Koresky, reverseshot.org. November 10, 2005.

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