Saul Alinsky Quotes - Page 4

Quotes about:

• My only fixed truth is a belief in people, a conviction that if people have the opportunity to act freely and the power to control their own destinies, they'll generally reach the right decisions.

  Saul Alinsky

  Opportunity, Destiny, People

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• No issue can be negotiated unless you first have the clout to compel negotiation.

  Saul Alinsky

  Issues, Firsts, Negotiation

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• Men don't like to step abruptly out of the security of familiar experience; they need a bridge to cross from their own experience to a new way. A revolutionary organizer must shake up the prevailing patterns of their lives - agitate, create disenchantment and discontent with the current values, to produce, if not a passion for change, at least a passive, affirmative, non-challenging climate.

  Saul Alinsky

  Passion, Men, Bridges

  "Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals" by Saul Alinsky, (pp. xxi-xxii), 1971.

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• Change means movement. Movement means friction.

  Saul Alinsky

  Change, Mean, Vacuums

  Saul Alinsky (2010). “Reveille for Radicals”, p.224, Vintage

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• The end is what you want, the means is how you get it. Whenever we think about social change, the question of means and ends arises. The man of action views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms. He has no other problem; he thinks only of his actual resources and the possibilities of various choices of action. He asks of ends only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means, only whether they will work. ... The real arena is corrupt and bloody.

  Saul Alinsky

  Real, Mean, Men

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• Do one of three things. One, go find a wailing wall and feel sorry for yourselves. Two, go psycho and start bombing - but this will only swing people to the right. Three, learn a lesson. Go home, organize, build power and at the next convention, you be the delegates.

  Saul Alinsky

  Wall, Sorry, Home

  "Gingrich attacks on Obama resurrect Saul Alinsky" by James Rosen, www.foxnews.com. January 25, 2012.

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• Many of the lower middle class are members of labor unions, churches, bowling clubs, fraternal, service, and nationality organizations. They are organizations and people that must be worked
  with as one would work with any other part of our populations - with respect, understanding, and sympathy.

  Saul Alinsky

  Class, Organization, People

  Saul Alinsky (2010). “Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals”, p.189, Vintage

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• It should be borne in mind that the target is always trying to shift responsibility to get out of being the target. There is a constant squirming and moving and strategy . . . on the part of the designated target. The forces for change must keep this in mind and pin that target down securely. If an organization permits responsibility to be diffused and distributed in a number of areas, attack becomes impossible.

  Saul Alinsky

  Moving, Responsibility, Always Trying

  "Rules for Radicals". Book by Saul Alinsky, 1971.

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• The cry of the Have-Nots has never been "give us our hearts," but always "get off our backs"; they ask not for love but for breathing space.

  Saul Alinsky

  Heart, Space, Breathing

  "Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals". Book by Saul Alinsky (p. 19), 1971.

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• Our world has always had two kinds of changers, the social changers and the money changers.

  Saul Alinsky

  Our World, Two, Kind

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• It does not matter what you know about anything if you cannot communicate to your people. In that event you are not even a failure. You're just not there.

  Saul Alinsky

  People, Events, Doe

  Saul Alinsky (2010). “Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals”, p.81, Vintage

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• Organized business has assumed that greater profits would be pretty much of a cure-all, and it has to a major extent ignored the fact that the welfare of business rests upon the welfare of the consumers of a nation; that business or free enterprise will function in a democracy only so long as the democracy functions.

  Saul Alinsky

  Long, Democracy, Would Be

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• The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.

  Saul Alinsky

  Successful, Alternatives, Rules For Radicals

  Saul Alinsky (2016). “Thirteen Tactics for Realistic Radicals: from Rules for Radicals”, p.7, 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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• One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other.

  Saul Alinsky

  Angel, Devil, Sides

  Saul Alinsky (2016). “Thirteen Tactics for Realistic Radicals: from Rules for Radicals”, p.10, Vintage

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• The second rule is: Never go outside the experience of your people. When an action is outside the experience of the people, the result is confusion, fear, and retreat.

  Saul Alinsky

  Fear, People, Confusion

  Saul Alinsky (2016). “Thirteen Tactics for Realistic Radicals: from Rules for Radicals”, p.5, Vintage

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• You cannot meet today's crisis tomorrow.

  Saul Alinsky

  Today, Tomorrow, Crisis

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• The American people were, in the beginning, Revolutionaries and Tories. The American people ever since have been Revolutionaries and Tories. They have been Revolutionaries and Tories regardless of the labels of the past and present. Regardless of whether they were Federalists, Democrat-Republicans, Whigs, Know-Nothings, Free Soilers, Unionists or Confederates, Populists, Republicans, Democrats, Socialists, Communists, or Progressives. They have been and are profiteers and patriots. They have been and are conservatives, liberals, and radicals.

  Saul Alinsky

  Past, People, Labels

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• Once you accept your own death, all of a sudden you are free to live.

  Saul Alinsky

  Death, Acceptance, Accepting

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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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• As an organizer I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be.

  Saul Alinsky

  Reality, World, Rules For Radicals

  Saul Alinsky (2010). “Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals”, p.19, Vintage

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• Love and faith are not common companions. More commonly power and fear consort with faith....Power is not to be crossed; one must respect and obey. Power means strength, whereas love is a human frailty the people mistrust. It is a sad fact of life that power and fear are the fountainheads of faith.

  Saul Alinsky

  Fear, Mean, Love Is

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• Last guys don't finish nice.

  Saul Alinsky

  Nice, Guy, Enemy

  "Saul Alinsky: who is he and why does Newt Gingrich keep mentioning him?" by Richard Adams, www.theguardian.com. January 23, 2012.

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• Spouting quotes from Mao, Castro, and Che Guevara, which are as germane to our highly technological, computerized, cybernetic, nuclearpowered, mass media society as a stagecoach on a jet runway at Kennedy airport.

  Saul Alinsky

  Airports, Political, Politics

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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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