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Civil Disobedience Quotes

Browse 244 quotes about Civil Disobedience.

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Civil Disobedience Quotes

“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.”

OrderPeaceJusticeWhiteCitizensDiversityNegativeSocial JusticeAbsenceBlockConclusionTensionDevotedModeratesDisobedienceStrideCivil DisobedienceStumblingLukewarmEconomic JusticeStumbling BlocksCreative Tension
Author:Martin Luther King, Jr.
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“Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was seen sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar because a higher moral law was involved. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks, before submitting to certain unjust laws of the Roman empire.”

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Book:The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.:
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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.”

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Book: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
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“The world censures those who take up arms to defend their causes and calls on them to use nonviolent means in voicing their grievances. But when a people chooses the nonviolent path, it is all too often the case that hardly anyone pays attention. It is tragic that people have to suffer and die and the television cameras have to deliver the pictures to people's homes every day before the world at large admits there is a problem.”

PeopleWorldMeanUseProblemHomeSufferingDiesCausesPayAttentionCasesPathTelevisionArmsCamerasPay AttentionTragicProtestNonviolenceDisobedienceCivil DisobedienceGrievanceCensure
Author:Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo
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“It should be remarked that, as the principle of liberty is better understood, and more nobly interpreted, a broader protest is made in behalf of women. As men become aware that few have had a fair chance, they are inclined to say that no women have had a fair chance.”

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Book:The Woman and the Myth: Margaret Fuller's Life and Writings
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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.”

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Author:Martin Luther King, Jr.
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“You think OWS is radical? You think 350.org was radical for helping organize mass civil disobedience in D.C. in August against the Keystone Pipeline? We're not radical. Radicals work for oil companies. The CEO of Exxon gets up every morning and goes to work changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere. No one has ever done anything as radical as that, not in all of human history.”

ThinkingHumansDoneHelpingChangeWorkCompanyMorningMassEnvironmentalOilGet UpRadicalAtmosphereChemicalsPollutionEvery MorningCompositionOrganizeCeoHuman HistoryDisobedienceAugustCivil DisobedienceEnvironmentalistPipelineOil CompaniesKeystonesKeystone Pipeline
Author:Bill McKibben
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“It is alarming ... to see Mr Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well-known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal Palace while he is still organising and conducting a campaign of civil disobedience.”

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Book:Churchill: The Power of Words
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“The only safe and honorable course for a self-respecting man is to do what I have decided to do, that is, to submit without protest to the penalty of disobedience ... not for want of respect for lawful authority, but in obedience to the higher law of our being, the voice of conscience.”

MenWantSelfLawCoursesVoiceHigherSafeAuthorityConscienceDecidedObedienceProtestSubmitPenaltiesHonorableDisobedienceCivil DisobedienceHigher Law
Book:Letters on Indian Affairs
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