Rules For Radicals Quotes - Page 3

• All of us are driven by a simple belief that the world as it is just won't do - that we have an obligation to fight for the world as it should be.

  Michelle Obama

  Fighting, Simple, World

  "Michelle Obama: My husband will be 'extraordinary president'", www.cnn.com. August 25, 2008.

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• We have an obligation to fight for the world as it should be.

  Michelle Obama

  Fighting, World, Should

  Democratic National Convention Keynote Address, delivered 25 August 2008, INVESCO Field at Mile High Stadium, Denver, Colorado

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• A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.

  Saul Alinsky

  People, Tactics, Enjoy

  Saul Alinsky (2016). “Thirteen Tactics for Realistic Radicals: from Rules for Radicals”, p.6, Vintage

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• A good tactic is one your people enjoy.

  Saul

  People, Tactics, Enjoy

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• One’s concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one’s personal interest in the issue.

  Saul Alinsky

  Mean, Issues, Ethics

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• Life is there ahead of you and either one tests oneself in its challenges or huddles in the valleys of a dreamless day-to-day existence whose only purpose is the preservation of a illusory security and safety. The latter is what the vast majority of people choose to do, fearing the adventure into the known.

  Saul Alinsky

  Life, Adventure, People

  Saul Alinsky (2010). “Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals”, p.22, Vintage

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• From the moment the organizer enters a community he lives, dreams... only one thing and that is to build the mass power base of what he calls the army. Until he has developed that mass power base, he confronts no major issues.... Until he has those means and power instruments, his tactics are very different from power tactics. Therefore, every move revolves around one central point: how many recruits will this bring into the organization, whether by means of local organizations, churches, service groups, labor Unions, corner gangs, or as individuals.

  Saul Alinsky

  Dream, Moving, Mean

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• The preferred world can be seen any evening on television in the succession of programs where the good always wins

  Saul Alinsky

  Winning, Television, World

  Saul Alinsky (2010). “Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals”, p.12, Vintage

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• Life is, in fact, a battle. Evil is insolent and strong; beauty enchanting, but rare; goodness very apt to be weak; folly very apt to be defiant; wickedness to carry the day; imbeciles to be in great places, people of sense in small, and mankind generally unhappy. But the world as it stands is no narrow illusion, no phantasm, no evil dream of the night; we wake up to it, forever and ever; and we can neither forget it nor deny it nor dispense with it.

  Henry James

  Dream, Strong, Believe

  Henry James (2016). “The Daily Henry James: A Year of Quotes from the Work of the Master”, p.4, University of Chicago Press

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• The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away. In this book we are concerned with how to create mass organizations to seize power and give it to the people; to realize the democratic dream of equality, justice, peace, cooperation, equal and full opportunities for education, full and useful employment, health, and the creation of those circumstances in which man can have the chance to live by values that give meaning to life.

  Saul Alinsky

  Dream, Book, Opportunity

  Saul Alinsky (2010). “Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals”, p.3, Vintage

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• The end is what you want and the means is how you get it.

  Saul Alinsky

  Mean, Want, Ends

  Saul Alinsky (2010). “Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals”, p.24, Vintage

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• In this world laws are written for the lofty aim of "the common good" and then acted out in life on the basis of the common greed.

  Saul Alinsky

  Law, Greed, World

  Saul Alinsky (2010). “Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals”, p.13, Vintage

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• An organizer working in and for an open society is in an ideological dilemma to begin with, he does not have a fixed truth - truth to him is relative and changing; everything to him is relative and changing.... To the extent that he is free from the shackles of dogma, he can respond to the realities of the widely different situations.

  Saul Alinsky

  Reality, Doe, Different

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• The human spirit glows from that small inner light of doubt whether we are right, while those who believe with certainty that they possess the right are dark inside and darken the world outside with cruelty, pain, and injustice.

  Saul Alinsky

  Pain, Believe, Dark

  Saul Alinsky (2010). “Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals”, p.4, Vintage

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• Organization for action will now and in the decade ahead center upon America's white middle class. That is where the power is. ... Our rebels have contemptuously rejected the values and the way of life of the middle class. They have stigmatized it as materialistic, decadent, bourgeois, degenerate, imperialistic, war-mongering, brutalized and corrupt. They are right; but we must begin from where we are if we are to build power for change, and the power and the people are in the middle class majority.

  Saul Alinsky

  War, Class, Organization

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• It is a sad fact of life that power and fear are the fountainheads of faith.

  Saul Alinsky

  Facts, Fountainhead, Power And Fear

  Saul Alinsky (2010). “Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals”, p.99, Vintage

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• In this world laws are written for the lofty aim of "the common good" and then acted out in life on the basis of the common greed. In this world irrationality clings to man like his shadow so that the right things get done for the wrong reasons - afterwards, we dredge up the right reasons for justification. It is a world not of angels but of angles, where men speak of moral principles but act on power principles; a world where we are always moral and our enemies always immoral; a world where "reconciliation" means that when one side gets the power and the other side gets reconciled to it.

  Saul Alinsky

  Mean, Angel, Men

  "Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals". Book by Saul Alinsky, p. 13, archive.org. 1971.

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• Radicals must be resilient, adaptable to shifting political circumstances, and sensitive enough to the process of action and reaction to avoid being trapped by their own tactics and forced to travel a road not of their choosing.

  Saul Alinsky

  Political, Tactics, Shifting

  Saul Alinsky (2010). “Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals”, p.6, Vintage

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• Once you accept your own death, all of a sudden you're free to live. You no longer care about your reputation. You no longer care except so far as your life can be used tactically to promote a cause you believe in.

  Saul Alinsky

  Death, Grief, Believe

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• The seventh rule of the ethics of means and ends is that generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics. The judgment of history leans heavily on the outcome of success or failure; it spells the difference between the traitor and the patriotic hero. There can be no such thing as a successful traitor, for if one succeeds he becomes a founding father.

  Saul Alinsky

  Father, Hero, Mean

  Saul Alinsky (2010). “Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals”, p.34, Vintage

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• The ninth rule of the ethics of means and ends is that any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical.

  Saul Alinsky

  Mean, Ethics, Ends

  "Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals". Book by Saul Alinsky, p. 35, archive.org. 1971.

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• Taking a new step. . .is what people fear most.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Inspirational, Life, Fear

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• Every sentence I utter must be understood not as an affirmation, but as a question.

  Niels Bohr

  Science, Understanding, Selfless

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• The practical revolutionary will understand Goethe's 'conscience is the virtue of observers and not of agents of action'; in action, one does not always enjoy the luxury of a decision that is consistent both with one's individual conscience and the good of mankind.

  Saul Alinsky

  Luxury, Decision, Doe

  Saul Alinsky (2010). “Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals”, p.25, Vintage

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• Theres another reason for working inside the system. Dostoevsky said that taking a new step is what people fear most. Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution.

  Saul Alinsky

  Letting Go, Attitude, Acceptance

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