Disobedience Quotes - Page 2

• We must develop huge demonstrations, because the world is used to big dramatic affairs. They think in terms of hundreds of thousands and millions and billions... Billions of dollars are appropriated at the twinkling of an eye. Nothing little counts.

  A. Philip Randolph

  Eye, Thinking, World

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• The force of love, the force of reunion is unstoppable.

  Charles Eisenstein

  Corrupt Power, Reunion, Unstoppable

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• Disobedience, the rarest and most courageous of the virtues, is seldom distinguished from neglect, the laziest and commonest of the vices.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Vices, Revolution, Courageous

  George Bernard Shaw (2015). “George Bernard Shaw: Collected Articles, Lectures, Essays and Letters: Thoughts and Studies from the Renowned Dramaturge and Author of Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Pygmalion, Arms and The Man, Saint Joan, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion”, p.311, e-artnow

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• I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born.

  Oriana Fallaci

  Miracle, Use, Way

  "Intervista con la storia (Interview with History)". Book by Oriana Fallaci (Preface), 1976.

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• We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty.

  Edward R. Murrow

  Political, Due Process Of Law, Conformity

  "Report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy" (television documentary), 7 Mar. 1954

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• That government is best which governs least.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Freedom, Democracies Have, Government

  Civil Disobedience (1849) See Ralph Waldo Emerson 29; O'Sullivan 1; Shipley 1

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• Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Law, Unjust, Endeavor

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.79, Penguin

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• There is all the difference in the world between the criminal's avoiding the public eye and the civil disobedience's taking the law into his own hands in open defiance. This distinction between an open violation of the law, performed in public, and a clandestine one is so glaringly obvious that it can be neglected only by prejudice or ill will.

  Hannah Arendt

  Eye, Ill Will, Hands

  Hannah Arendt (1972). “Crises of the Republic: Lying in Politics; Civil Disobedience; On Violence; Thoughts on Politics and Revolution”, p.85, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Respect, Law, Desire

  "A Treasury of Jewish Quotations". Book by Joseph L. Baron, 1996.

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• Ordinarily, a person leaving a courtroom with a conviction behind him would wear a somber face. But I left with a smile. I knew that I was a convicted criminal, but I was proud of my crime.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Leaving, Criminals, Proud

  Martin Luther King (Jr.) (1968). “I Have a Dream: The Quotations of Martin Luther King, Jr”

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• It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Hands, Giving

  Henry David Thoreau (2002). “The Essays of Henry D. Thoreau: Selected and Edited by Lewis Hyde”, p.207, North Point Press

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• Disobedience- that is the nobility of slaves.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Slave, Nobility

  Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (2015). “Thus Spake Zarathustra”, p.49, Booklassic

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• I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe — "That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Believe, Men, Politics

  Civil Disobedience (1849) See Ralph Waldo Emerson 29; O'Sullivan 1; Shipley 1

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• I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice.

  William Lloyd Garrison

  Truth, Justice, Retreat

  The Liberator, 1 Jan. 1831 (first issue)

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• The labor movement means just this: It is the last noble protest of the American people against the power of incorporated wealth.

  Wendell Phillips

  Mean, Labour Movement, People

  Wendell Phillips (1891). “Speeches, Lectures, and Letters: Second series”

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• Dare to do things worthy of imprisonment if you mean to be of consequence.

  Juvenal

  Mean, Dare, Worthy

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• King consciously steered away from legal claims and instead relied on civil disobedience.

  Constance Baker Motley

  Kings, Claims, Civil Disobedience

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• Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism, are all too frequently those who . . . ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism-the right to criticize, the right to hold unpopular beliefs, the right to protest, the right of independent thought.

  Margaret Chase Smith

  Independent, Rights, America

  Margaret Chase Smith (1972). “Declaration of conscience”

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• I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Running, Peace, Believe

  Broadcast discussion, 31 Aug. 1959

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• I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Evil, Cooperation, Moral

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• My first civil disobedience arrest for social justice was in 1986 for protesting the SDI.

  Martin Sheen

  Justice, Firsts, Social

  Interview with David Kupfer, progressive.org. July 1, 2003.

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• While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

  Eugene V. Debs

  Equality, Class, Diversity

  Speech at trial, Cleveland, Ohio, 14 Sept. 1918

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• I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Writing, Ideas, Evil

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• When an individual is protesting society's refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him.

  Bayard Rustin

  Acknowledge You, Society, Dignity

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

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• Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Fear, Men, Nwo

  "The New Freedom : A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People" by Woodrow Wilson, (p. 13), 1913.

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