Protest Quotes - Page 6

• Citizens who live or work near protest sites or marches have every right to be free of violence from protesters, and they should never be subjected to destruction of property.

  Naomi Wolf

  Citizens, Violence, March

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• The pessimism that protests and defends itself cannot be truly said to be pessimism.

  Miguel de Unamuno

  Pessimism, Said

  Miguel De Unamuno (2005). “Tragic Sense of Life”, p.265, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Originality is deliberate and forced, and partakes of the nature of a protest.

  Eric Hoffer

  Originality, Deliberate

  'Passionate State of Mind' (1955) p. 21

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• Most acts of assent require far more courage than most acts of protest, since courage is clearly a readiness to risk self-humiliation.

  Nigel Dennis

  Courage, Self, Risk

  Nigel Forbes Dennis (1949). “A Sea Change”

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• We jumped into the protest of Vietnam before the Black Panther Party ever started, before the Black Panther Party was even thought of. In fact, it was late 1965 and 1966 that the anti-Vietnam War, anti-draft to the Vietnam War protest started at University of California, Berkeley.

  Bobby Seale

  War, Party, California

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• It's not enough to say we need to love each other, you have to go behind that and say we need to change these policies, we need to fight, we need to protest, we need to agitate for change.

  John Legend

  Fighting, Needs, Enough

  Source: www.washingtontimes.com

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• It was not by accident or coincidence that the rights to freedom in speech and press were coupled in a single guaranty with the rights of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition for redress of grievances. All these, though not identical, are inseparable. They are cognate rights, and therefore are united in the First Article's assurance.

  Wiley Blount Rutledge

  Peace, Rights, People

  "Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. January 8, 1945.

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• Christian morality (so called) has all the characters of a reaction; it is, in great part, a protest against Paganism. Its ideal is negative rather than positive; passive rather than action; innocence rather than Nobleness; Abstinence from Evil, rather than energetic Pursuit of Good: in its precepts (as has been well said) "thou shalt not" predominates unduly over "thou shalt.

  John Stuart Mill

  Christian, Character, Evil

  "On Liberty". Philosophical work by John Stuart Mill (ch. II: Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion), 1859.

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• In the largest sense, every work of art is protest... A lullaby is a propaganda song and any three-year-old knows it... A hymn is a controversial song - sing one in the wrong church: you'll find out...

  Pete Seeger

  Song, Art, Years

  "Show 33 - Revolt of the Fat Angel: American musicians respond to the British invaders, Part 1". Interview on radio documentary series "Pop Chronicles", digital.library.unt.edu. February 14, 1968.

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• Men would bless you or curse you;
  The curse, a protest against failure,
  The blessing, a hymn of the hunter
  Who comes back from the hills
  With provision for his mate.

  Khalil Gibran

  Blessing, Men, Hymns

  "A Man From Lebanon: Nineteen Centuries Afterward". "Jesus, The Son of Man". Book by Khalil Gibran, 1928.

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• When a social movement adopts the compromises of legislators, it has forgotten its role, which is to push and challenge the politicians, not fall in meekly behind them. We who protest...are not politicians. We are citizens. Whatever politicians may do, let them first feel the full force of citizens who speak for what is right, not for what is winnable, in a shamefully timorous Congress.

  Howard Zinn

  Fall, Challenges, Roles

  "Are We Politicians or Citizens?" by Howard Zinn, progressive.org. May 1, 2007.

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• Few poets have made a more interesting rhetoric out of just fooling around: turning things upside down, looking at them from under the sofa, considering them (and their observer) curiously enough to make the reader protest, "That were to consider it too curiously.

  Randall Jarrell

  Interesting, Upside Down, Poet

  "The Third Book of Criticism". Book by Randall Jarrell, "The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens" (p. 64), 1969.

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• Organized religion has too often followed the road of other people's institutions. It has made adjustments, compromises, and surrenders to a materialistic civilization for the benefit of material security in spite of occasional twinges of conscience and moral protests. The result has been that today much of organized religion is materialistically solvent but spiritually bankrupt.

  Saul Alinsky

  Civilization, People, Religion

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• Cursed be all those on land and sea who eat their fill, cursed be all those who starve yet raise no hand in protest, cursed be all the bread, the wine, the meat which day by day descends deep in the entrails of the exploited man and turns not into freedom's cry, the murderer's ruthless knife!

  Nikos Kazantzakis

  Wine, Men, Hands

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• Say did you read in the papers about a bunch of Women up in British Columbia as a protest against high taxes, sit out in the open naked, and they wouldent put their clothes on? The authorities finally turned a Sprayer that you use on trees, on 'em. That may lead into quite a thing. Woman comes into the tax office nude, saying I won't pay. Well they can't search her and get anything. It sounds great. How far is it to British Columbia?

  Will Rogers

  Clothes, Office, Tree

  Will Rogers, James Smallwood, Steven K. Gragert (1982). “Will Rogers' Weekly Articles: The Harding”

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• If the creatures with fur/feathers/fins are our brothers in a lower stage of development then their very weakness and inability to protest, demands that man should refrain from torturing them for the mere possibility of obtaining some knowledge which he believes may be to his own interest.

  Luther Burbank

  Brother, Believe, Animal

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• Against my protests a mausoleum was built on the Red Square, a monument unbecoming and offensive to the revolutionary consciousness.

  Leon Trotsky

  Squares, Red, Consciousness

  Leon Trotsky (2012). “My Life: An Attempt at an Autobiography”, p.514, Courier Corporation

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• After the rigged Iranian presidential elections in 2009, the Islamic regime attacked the 'humanities' as the main source of protests, the most effective tool used by the West, especially America, to corrupt and incite Iranian youth, and finally closed down all the Humanities departments in Iran's universities.

  Azar Nafisi

  Islamic, America, Iran

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• I was always a politician from the day the civil rights people chose me as their protest singer.

  Nina Simone

  Music, Rights, People

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• Kids today do nothing. They're so apathetic. We used to go out and protest. All they do is shop and complain.

  Douglas Coupland

  Kids, Complaining, Today

  "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture". Book by Douglas Coupland, 1991.

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• I think O.J. protests too much. Not only did he say he didn't carve the holiday turkey, but he was in the back yard practicing his golf swing the whole time.

  David Letterman

  Holiday, Golf, Thinking

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• [O]ur War of the Revolution was, in good measure, fought as a protest against standing armies.

  Earl Warren

  War, Army, Revolution

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• Neither when we have chosen our way can we keep company with those who go the other way. There must come with the decision for truth a corresponding protest against error.

  Charles Spurgeon

  Christian, Errors, Decision

  Charles Spurgeon (2017). “The Down Grade Controversy”, p.33, Lulu Press, Inc

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• The teachers unions are the clearest example of a group that has lost its way. Whenever anyone dares to offer a new idea, the unions protest the loudest. Their attitude was memorably expressed by a longtime president of the American Federation of Teachers: He said, quote, 'When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of children.'

  Mitt Romney

  Teacher, Children, Attitude

  "'Who's Killing Philly Public Schools?': Daniel Denvir on Plan for School Closings, Privatization". www.truth-out.org. May 25, 2012.

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• If you throw one stone, it’s a punishable offence. If 1,000 stones are thrown, it’s political action. If you set a car on fire, it’s a punishable offence. If hundreds of cars are set on fire, it’s political action. Protest is when I say I don’t agree with something. Resistance is when I ensure that things with which I disagree no longer take place.

  Ulrike Meinhof

  Fire, Car, Political

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