Rioting Quotes

• 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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• 

  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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• Rioting is not revolutionary.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Revolutionary

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

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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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• Some people watching CNN were so shocked they started rioting. No, I'm kidding. No one watches CNN.

  Craig Ferguson

  Cnn, People, Watches

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• Ours is the wild tumult of the unchained storm, the tumult of the army on the march, clashing its cymbals, rioting with excess of energy. Need we be ashamed of it?

  Liam O'Flaherty

  Army, Storm, Energy

  Liam O'Flaherty (1996). “The Letters of Liam O'Flaherty”, Irish Amer Book Company

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• Rioting has always been a London tradition. It has been since the early Middle Ages. There's hardly a spate of years that goes by without violent rioting of one kind or another. They happen so frequently that they are almost part of London's texture.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Years, Age, Texture

  "Peter Ackroyd: 'Rioting has been a London tradition for centuries'". The Monday Interview with Andy McSmith, www.independent.co.uk. August 21, 2011.

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• Marches work, rallies work, civil disobedience works, direct action works, voting works, writing letters works, speaking to churches and schools works, rioting works.

  Cleve Jones

  Writing, School, Direct Action

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• My politics were pretty anarchistic until 1969 when the Montreal police went on strike. Within hours, mayhem and rioting broke out and the Mounties had to be called in to restore order. It instilled in me that one's convictions can be subjected to empirical test.

  Steven Pinker

  Order, Police, Tests

  "This much I know". Interview with Tom Templeton, www.theguardian.com. June 21, 2008.

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• In my day, the principal concerns of university students were sex, smoking dope, rioting and learning. Learning was something you did only when the first three weren't available.

  Bill Bryson

  Sex, Dope, University Students

  Bill Bryson (1989). “The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-town America”, p.72, VNR AG

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• Writing as writing. Writing as rioting. Writing as righting.
  On the best days, all three.

  Teju Cole

  Writing, Three

  Twitter post from Apr 11, 2014

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• These fledgling democracies in the Middle East, they're actually fighting for their freedom. And what are they rioting for in England? Leisurewear.

  Noel Gallagher

  Fighting, Democracy, Middle East

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• Liberals believe that crime is inextricably linked with poverty. In reality, most poor people never resort to crime, and some wealthy people commit evil acts to enrich themselves further. Harlem, East Los Angeles, the South side of Chicago are not the poorest communities in the United States. According to a new U.S. Bureau of the Census report, the poorest communities are Shannon County, South Dakota, followed by Starr, Texas, and Tunica, Mississippi. Have you ever heard of these residents rioting to protest their living conditions?

  Rush Limbaugh

  Life, Believe, Reality

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• "This is now the twelfth day of rioting in France. They have been rioting for almost two weeks. And France has still not surrendered. That's like a record.

  Jay Leno

  Two, Records, France

  "The Tonight Show", November 7, 2005.

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• Man's Reason is in such deep insolvency to sense,that tho' she guide his highest flight heav'nward, and teach himdignity morals manners and human comfort,she can delicatly and dangerously bedizenthe rioting joys that fringe the sad pathways of Hell.

  Robert Bridges

  Men, Joy, Pathways

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• So many girls out there say, "I'm not a feminist" because they think it means something angry or disgruntled or complaining or they picture, like, rioting and picketing. It is not that at all. It just simply means that you believe that women and men should have equal rights and opportunities.

  Taylor Swift

  Girl, Believe, Mean

  "Taylor Swift Supports Emma Watson's Speech on Feminism". www.etonline.com.

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• If you're going to give people 20 minutes of news satire, you've also got to give them Tiffani-Amber Thiessen or you're going to have rioting in the streets.

  Jon Stewart

  People, Giving, News

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• Even more ominous ... is the fact that since the Second World War a new kind of intellectual has emerged in large numbers. ... he is only minimally interested in the proper intellectual significance of images and objects. Such people are not really intellectuals, but visuals ... A visual is more interested in style than in content ... A visual does not feel a rioting crowd being machine-gunned by the police, he simply sees a brilliant news photograph.

  John Fowles

  War, Numbers, People

  "The Aristos: A Self-Portrait in Ideas". Book by John Fowles, 1964.

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• Freedom of speech trumps political correctness. I would say our magazine would publish an anti-Semitic or Holocaust denying cartoon if it meant Jews around the world were rioting because of it and burning embassies because of a cartoon. We would want to show our readers what all the fuss was about.

  Ezra Levant

  Holocaust, Political, Freedom Of Speech

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• Purchasing power is a license to purchase power. The old proletariat sold its labour power in order to subsist; what little leisure time it had was passed pleasantly enough in conversations, arguments, drinking, making love, wandering, celebrating and rioting. The new proletarian sells his labour power in order to consume. When he’s not flogging himself to death to get promoted in the labour hierarchy, he’s being persuaded to buy himself objects to distinguish himself in the social hierarchy. The ideology of consumption becomes the consumption of ideology.

  Raoul Vaneigem

  Drinking, Order, Making Love

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• I could see flames from the windows of my chambers. For the next three or four days we had major rioting here in Washington and I stayed at the court day and night.

  Harold H. Greene

  Night, Flames, Three

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• Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began. ... What if the checks had never arrived? No doubt the blacks would have fully privatized the welfare state through continued looting. But they were paid off and the violence subsided.

  Ron Paul

  Order, What If, Doubt

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• I love you between shadow and soul. I love you as the plant that hasn't bloomed yet, and carries hidden within itself the light of flowers. I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. Because of you, the dense fragrance that rises from the earth lives in my body, rioting with hunger for the eternity of our victorious kisses.

  Pablo Neruda

  Flower, Love You, Kissing

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• That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn't even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn't even an enemy you could put your finger on.

  Margaret Atwood

  Home, Night, People

  FaceBook post by Margaret Atwood from Feb 20, 2017

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• A novel is like a gland pill - it nips off the cream of my hysterics and gets them running on track in a book where they belong instead of rioting all over my person.

  Dawn Powell

  Running, Book, Writing

  Dawn Powell (1998). “The Diaries of Dawn Powell: 1931-1965”, Zoland Books

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