Riot Quotes

• What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?

  Socrates

  Law, People, Parent

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• The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Wisdom, Emotional, Winning

  Martin Luther King, Martin Luther King (Jr.) (1989). “The trumpet of conscience”, HarperCollins

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• No one wants to see self-destructive riots because there's no future in riots.

  Jesse Jackson

  Self, Want, Destructive

  "Rev. Jesse Jackson appears at protest in Ferguson". "Hannity" with Andrea Tantaros, www.foxnews.com. August 15, 2014.

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• When you cut facilities, slash jobs, abuse power, discriminate, drive people into deeper poverty & shoot people dead whilst refusing to provide answers or justice, the people will rise up & express their anger & frustration if you refuse to hear their cries. A riot is the language of the unheard.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Jobs, Cutting, Frustration

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• I feel that non-violence is really the only way that we can follow because violence is just so self-defeating. A riot ends up creating many more problems for the negro community than it solved. We can through violence burn down a building, but you can't establish justice. You can murder a murderer, but you can't murder murder through violence. You can murder a hater, but you can't murder hate. And what we're trying to get rid of is hate, injustice, and all of these other things that continue the long night of man's inhumanity to man.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Hate, Night, Men

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• The poor suffer twice at the rioter's hands. First, his destructive fury scars their neighborhood; second, the atmosphere of accommodation and consent is changed to one of hostility and resentment.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Hands, Suffering, Atmosphere

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• If you call it a riot, it sounds like it was just a bunch of crazy people who went out and did bad things for no reason. I maintain it was somewhat understandable, if not acceptable. So I call it a rebellion.

  Maxine Waters

  Crazy, Stupid, People

  "Was It a 'Riot,' a 'Disturbance' or a 'Rebellion'?" by Swati Pandey, www.latimes.com. April 29, 2007.

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• It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Alternatives, Attention, Tonight

  "The Other America". Speech Grosse Pointe High School, www.gphistorical.org. March 14, 1968.

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• Riots are the voices of the unheard.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Voice, Revolution, Unheard

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• There's only two things you can start without a plan: a riot and a family, for everything else you need a plan.

  Groucho Marx

  Two, Needs, Plans

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• And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  White, America, Years

  "The Other America". Speech at Grosse Pointe High School, March 14, 1968.

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• We have the riots we deserve.

  Alain Badiou

  Deserve

  Alain Badiou (2006). “Polemics”, New Left Books

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• 

  A riot is the language of the unheard.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Kings, Race Riots

  Martin Luther King, Jr. (2016). “MLK on "The Other America" and "Black Power"”, p.6, Beacon Press

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• Passion is the mob of the man, that commits a riot upon his reason.

  William Penn

  Passion, Men, Reason

  William Penn (1782). “The Select Works of William Penn....”, p.146

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• You can't just lecture the poor that they shouldn't riot or go to extremes. You have to make the means of legal redress available.

  Harold H. Greene

  Mean, Two Extremes, Lectures

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• If some black man go out and start something, a riot or something or, I'm not going to jump in it and get killed because he's gone out and started something I don't believe in what he's fighting for or his approach.

  Muhammad Ali

  Believe, Fighting, Men

  "Parkinson" with Michael Parkinson, www.mirror.co.uk. 1971.

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• A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Loss, Dying, Culture

  Robert A. Heinlein (1982). “Friday”

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• We have nothing to fear but fear itself.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Inspirational, Motivational, Change

  Franklin D. Roosevelt (2010). “Quotations of Franklin Delano Roosevelt”

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• It is purposeless to tell Negroes they should not be enraged when they should be. Indeed, they will be mentally healthier if they do not suppress rage, but vent it constructively and use its energy peacefully but forcefully to cripple the operations of an oppressive society. Civil disobedience can utilize the militance wasted in riots to seize clothes or groceries many do not even want.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Clothes, Energy, Use

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• Riots born out of political issues aren't the same as those born out of personal greed.

  Ross Kemp

  Issues, Greed, Political

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• When the riots happened in L.A., they didn't go to Beverly Hills to trash Rodeo Drive. They trashed their own neighborhoods. It's one of those tragedies that we always see in riot situations, where the only thing that they can lash out against is the stuff that's right there in their own communities. They destroy the very things that help them survive in their own community. There is a level of futility in that.

  Samuel L. Jackson

  Community, Tragedy, Beverly Hills

  "The Freedomland Interview with Kam Williams". aalbc.com.

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• The learning process is something you can incite, literally incite, like a riot.

  Audre Lorde

  Process, Learning Process

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.98, Crossing Press

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• A riot is a spontaneous outburst. A war is subject to advance planning.

  Richard M. Nixon

  Military, War, Planning

  Address before the National Association of Manufacturers, New York City, December 8, 1967.

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• The Los Angeles riots were not caused by the Rodney King verdict. The Los Angeles riots were caused by rioters.

  Rush Limbaugh

  Inspirational, Kings, Loser

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• I grew up in the 30s with an unemployed father. He didn't riot; he got on his bike and looked for work and he kept looking 'til he found it.

  Norman Tebbit

  Father, Grew Up, Found

  Speech to the Conservative Party Conference, October 15, 1981.

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