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Civil Disobedience Quotes

Browse 244 quotes about Civil Disobedience.

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Civil Disobedience Quotes

“If any think that their influence would be lost there, and their voices no longer afflict the ear of the State, that they would not be as an enemy within its walls, they do not know how much truth is stronger than errors, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can combat injustice who has experienced a little in his own person. Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence.”

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Book:Civil Disobedience
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“The leaders and followers of the Harlem Renaissance were every bit as intent on using Black culture to help make the United States a more functional democracy as they were on employing Black culture to 'vindicate' Black people.”

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Book:Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
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“A final victory is an accumulation of many short-term encounters. To lightly dismiss a success because it does not usher in a complete order of justice is to fail to comprehend the process of full victory. It underestimates the value of confrontation and dissolves the confidence born of partial victory by which new efforts are powered.”

Civil RightsNonviolenceCivil DisobedienceMovement Of Change
Book:Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
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“Another site of Leftist struggle [other than Detroit] that has parallels to New Orleans: Palestine. From the central role of displacement to the ways in which culture and community serve as tools of resistance, there are illuminating comparisons to be made between these two otherwise very different places. In the New Orleans Black community, death is commemorated as a public ritual (it's often an occasion for a street party), and the deceased are often also memorialized on t-shirts featuring their photos embellished with designs that celebrate their lives. Worn by most of the deceased's friends and family, these t-shirts remind me of the martyr posters in Palestine, which also feature a photo and design to memorialize the person who has passed on. In Palestine, the poster's subjects are anyone who has been killed by the occupation, whether a sick child who died at a checkpoint or an armed fighter killed in combat. In New Orleans, anyone with family and friends can be memorialized on a t-shift. But a sad truth of life in poor communities is that too many of those celebrate on t-shirts lost their lives to violence. For both New Orleans and Palestine, outsiders often think that people have become so accustomed to death by violence that it has become trivialized by t-shirts and posters. While it's true that these traditions wouldn't manifest in these particular ways if either population had more opportunities for long lives and death from natural causes, it's also far from trivial to find ways to celebrate a life. Outsiders tend to demonize those killed--especially the young men--in both cultures as thugs, killers, or terrorists whose lives shouldn't be memorialized in this way, or at all. But the people carrying on these traditions emphasize that every person is a son or daughter of someone, and every death should be mourned, every life celebrated.”

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Book:Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six
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“But we need to search for and find, what we need to own and perfect into a magnificent, shining thing, is a new kind of politics. Not the politics of governments, but the politics of resistance. The politics of opposition. The politics of forcing accountability. The politics of slowing things down. In the present circumstances, I'd say the only thing worth globalizing is dissent.”

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Book:The New Stations of the Cross: The Way of the Cross According to Scripture
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“Ethnicity and tribe began, by definition, where sovereignty and taxes ended. The ethnic zone was feared and stigmatized by state rhetoric precisely because it was beyond its grasp and therefore an example of defiance and an ever-present temptation to those who might wish to evade the state.”

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Book:The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia
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“So how do the people resist unjust authority, which, we all agree, they must and should do and have done in the past? The best solution anyone has come up with is to say that violent revolutions can be avoided (and therefore, violent mobs legitimately suppressed) if 'the people' are understood to have the right to challenge the laws through nonviolent civil disobedience.”

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Book:The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement
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“Неговото отношение към гражданите се промени. Беше видял митинга, ...., на който митинг побелели мъже плачеха като деца - тъй дълбоко бяха оскърбени достойнството и гордостта на народа, бе изпитал същите чувства, същата мъка, скръб и гняв, но когато в края на митинга една жена от Варуша бе събрала малка тълпа от гладни съседки и бе хвърлила камъни в прозорците на кметството, той се изплаши, че може да се вдигне бунт. Заповяда да арестуват жените, ...., и написа заплашителна заповед към населението.”

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Book:Крадецът на праскови
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“All political movements are like this - we are in the right, everyone else is in the wrong. The people on our own side who disagree with us are heretics, and they start becoming enemies. With it comes an absolute conviction of your own moral superiority. There's oversimplification in everything, and a terror of flexibility.”

PeopleRealityPoliticalPoliticsSidesCommunityPartyMoralEnemyGenerationsHuman NatureMovementBecomingEthicsAbsolutesStrategyUnityTerrorConvictionIdeologyTeaVotingDisagreeFree SpeechSuperiorityPolitical PartiesFlexibilityCivilityDisobedienceTea PartyCivil DisobedienceHereticPartisanshipThird PartiesPolitical MovementsOversimplificationMoral Superiority
Author:Doris Lessing
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“Such expression is impossible in a cramped atmosphere. As I have no desire to offer civil disobedience I cannot write freely. As the author of satyagraha I cannot, consistently with my profession, suppress the vital part of myself for the sake of being able to write on permissible subjects. ... It would be like dealing with the trunk without the head.”

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Book:Satyagraha: Non-violent Resistance
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“When that devil's bullet lodged itself inside the body of Martin Luther King, he had already begun an astonishing mobilization of poor, Black, white, latino Americans who had nothing to lose. They would challenge our government to eliminate exploitative, merciless, and war-mongering policies, nationwide, or else "tie up the country" through "means of civil disobedience." Dr. King intended to organize those legions into "coercive direct actions" that would make of Babylon a dysfunctional behemoth begging for relief. Is it any wonder he was killed?”

MeanWarCountryBodyGovernmentActionBlackLosesChallengesWhitePoorWonderPolicyKingsDevilDirectTiesReliefBulletsDrsOrganizeLutherAstonishingLatinoDisobedienceBeggingCivil DisobedienceNothing To LoseLegionBlack WhiteBabylonDirect ActionMobilizationBehemoth
Author:June Jordan
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“Over and over again, people had to disobey lawful authority to follow the voice of their conscience. This obedience to God and disobedience to the State has, over and over again, happened throughout history. It is time again to cry out against our 'leaders,' to question (since it is not for us to say that they are evil) whether or not they are sane.”

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Author:Dorothy Day
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“It means that we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha. When there was no way left for constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods. But where constitutional methods are open, there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the Grammar of Anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us.”

WayMeanLeftSocialDealsEconomicAchieveMethodObjectivesAbandonCooperationAnarchyAbandonedJustificationGrammarDisobedienceCivil DisobedienceSatyagrahaUnconstitutional
Book:Selected speeches of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: (1927 - 1956)
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“It is purposeless to tell Negroes they should not be enraged when they should be. Indeed, they will be mentally healthier if they do not suppress rage, but vent it constructively and use its energy peacefully but forcefully to cripple the operations of an oppressive society. Civil disobedience can utilize the militance wasted in riots to seize clothes or groceries many do not even want.”

IfsWantShouldUseEnergyClothesActivismRageOperationsDisobedienceRiotGroceriesCivil DisobedienceCripples
Author:Martin Luther King, Jr.
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“Even here in America, we felt the cool, refreshing breeze of freedom when Nelson Mandela took the seat of Presidency in his country where formerly he was not even allowed to vote. We were enlarged by tears of pride as we saw Nelson Mandela's former prison guards invited, courteously, by him to watch from the front rows his inauguration.”

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Author:Maya Angelou
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“In response to criticism of its treatment of killer whales, Sea World said it will build them a larger habitat. When asked for comment, killer whales said, 'Hey, you know what's a larger habitat?' THE OCEAN.”

KnowsWorldSaidRealityScienceNatureCommunityJusticeComedySeaPolicyHealthOceanEthicsCapitalismCriticismStrategyPropertyResponseIdeologyHeyTreatmentCommentKillersFree MarketDisobedienceWhalesCivil DisobedienceHabitatHey YouKiller Whales
Author:Conan O'Brien
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“Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg apparently called President Obama directly to complain about NSA and how it spies on ordinary Americans. That's right, the guy who runs Facebook got mad at the NSA for spying on people. Talk about the pot unfriending the kettle!”

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Author:Jimmy Fallon
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“Racial discrimination in elections in Texas is no mere historical artifact. To the contrary, Texas has been found in violation of the Voting Rights Act in every redistricting cycle from and after 1970.”

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Author:Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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“But the question is, do we care enough? Do we care enough to keep standing up for the country that we know is possible, even if it's hard, and even if it's politically uncomfortable? Do we care enough to sustain the passion and the pressure to make our communities safer and our country safer? Do we care enough to do everything we can to spare other families the pain that is felt here today?”

IfsKnowsCountryHardEnoughRealityCareTodayPainPassionPoliticsFeltCommunityLeadershipJusticeDemocracyViolenceHuman NaturePolicyEthicsStandingPressureHuman RightsOur CountryIdeologyUncomfortableSparesCivilityDisobedienceOur CommunityCivil Disobedience
Author:Barack Obama
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“Congress needs to send a strong signal that direct communication with the leader of the free world is a privilege, particularly for a regime that has been as hostile as Iran has been towards America for more than three decades. President Rouhani needs to take these two simple steps to demonstrate good faith before any further discussions.”

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Author:Ted Cruz
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“I'm so sick and tired of all this violence, this gun violence. And how could I speak on it - you know - being one who has advocated violence and gun violence? The only way I could do it was through a song that spoke from the heart.”

KnowsWayHeartWisdomRealitySongPoliticsSpeakCommunityLeadershipJusticeHistoryViolenceGenerationsHuman NaturePolicyEthicsGunSickStrategyTiredUnityHuman RightsIndividualitySocial MediaIdeologySpokesFree SpeechCivilityDisobedienceCivil DisobedienceGun ViolenceSo Sick
Author:Snoop Dogg
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“From an athlete's perspective, to cancel the Olympics in regards to the threats would be absolutely devastating - especially since the Olympics - it's really about people meeting together through sports and putting aside their countries' differences for that time.”

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Author:Brian Boitano
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“I view the United States, today, much like East Berlin. And I'm off the grid. I've tried for 20 years to warn the country about the Democrats and Republicans, and nobody's listening.”

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Author:Jesse Ventura
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“You know, my father was a great encouragement for me because he spoke out for women's rights, he spoke out for girl's education. And at that time I said that why should I wait for someone else, why should I be looking to the government, to the army that they would help us? Why don't I raise my voice, why don't we speak up for our rights?”

KnowsShouldSaidHelpingWisdomGovernmentGirlFatherSpeakWaitingVoiceCommunityLeadershipJusticeEducationHistoryRightsViolenceEqualEthicsEncouragementArmyRaisesStrategyHuman RightsIndividualityTerrorismIdeologySpokesFree SpeechShould IWomens RightsEqual RightsCivilityDisobedienceSpeaks OutCivil Disobedience
Author:Malala Yousafzai
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“There's a reason survivors choose not to go to the police, and that's because they're treated as the criminals. The rapists are innocent until proven guilty, but survivors are guilty until proven innocent - at least in the eyes of the police.”

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Author:Emma Sulkowicz
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“In any conflict area, it is always the women who are the first point of attack. But I think the more they have seen of oppression and violence, they have gotten more brave, more strong, more fearless than they were. You see this refusal to just keep quiet and do as you are told.”

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Author:Fatima Bhutto
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