Passive Resistance Quotes

• Passive resistance is a method of securing rights by personal suffering; it is the reverse of resistance by arms.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Rights, Suffering, Arms

  Mahatma Gandhi, Anthony J. Parel (1997). “Gandhi: 'Hind Swaraj' and Other Writings”, p.90, Cambridge University Press

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• Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance.

  Herman Melville

  Earnest, Persons, Resistance

  1853 'Bartleby the Scrivener', in Putnam'sMonthly Magazine, Nov-Dec.

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• I think leaders are incapable of the strength that passive resistance entails.

  Meshell Ndegeocello

  Thinking, Leader, Incapable

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• Dr. King used Gandhi's commitment to non-violence and to passive resistance.

  Al Sharpton

  Kings, Commitment, Atheism

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• The function of violence is to obtain reform by external means, the function of passive resistance, that is, soul-force, is to obtain it by growth from within, which, in its turn, is obtained by self-suffering, self-purification.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Mean, Self, Soul

  Mahatma Gandhi, Anthony J. Parel (1997). “Gandhi: 'Hind Swaraj' and Other Writings”, p.146, Cambridge University Press

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• Passive resistance seeks to rejoin politics and religion and to test all our actions in the light of ethical principles.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Ethical Principles, Light, Religion

  Mahatma Gandhi, Anthony J. Parel (1997). “Gandhi: 'Hind Swaraj' and Other Writings”, p.146, Cambridge University Press

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• His response was to fight it with the only weapons at hand—passive resistance and open displays of contempt.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Fighting, Hands, Weapons

  Kurt Vonnegut (2007). “The Sirens of Titan”, p.203, Dial Press

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• Passive resistance is a sport for gentleman (and ladies)-just like the pursuit of war, a heroic enterprise for the ruling classes but a grievous burden on the rest.

  Kenneth Kaunda

  Sports, War, Class

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• The law of nature gives a man the right to defend himself when he's attacked. And God's law itself gives a man the right to defend himself when he's attacked.so, peaceful suffering and passive resistance and all of that stuff is all right maybe in India somewhere, where the people in India outnumber the whites - about a million to one.But here in America, when you tell that's like an elephant sitting down on a - on a mouse in India with [Mahatma] Gandhi.

  Malcolm X

  Men, Law, Elephants

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• It is because peaceful agitation and passive resistance are effective that I uphold them, and it is because force strengthens tyranny that I condemn it. War and Authority are companions; Peace and Liberty are companions. It is foolish in the extreme not only to resort to force before necessity compels, but especially to madly create the conditions that will lead to this necessity.

  Benjamin Tucker

  War, Peaceful, Liberty

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• Firstly, as a Buddhist monk, I hold that violence is not good. Secondly, I am a firm believer in the Gandian ethic of passive resistance. And thirdly, in reality, violence is not our strength.

  Dalai Lama

  Buddhist, Reality, Violence

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• I don't believe in anarchy, because it will ultimately amount to the power of the bully, with weapons. Gandhi is my life's inspiration: passive resistance. I don't want to live in the Thunderdome with Mad Max.

  John Lydon

  Bullying, Believe, Inspiration

  "76 minutes with ... John Lydon". Interview with Dave Simpson, www.theguardian.com. May 31, 2012.

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• We talk to each other in code. We said that 420 was a special number. It was a time. It was a date. It was a symbol for what we did for passive resistance.

  Rick Cusick

  Marijuana, Numbers, Special

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• After meditating for some years, I began to see the patterns of my own behavior. As you quiet your mind, you begin to see the nature of your own resistance more clearly, struggles, inner dialogues, the way in which you procrastinate and develop passive resistance against life. As you cultivate the witness, things change. You don't have to change them. Things just change.

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  Ram Dass

  Struggle, Years, Mind

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