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Dissidents Quotes

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Dissidents Quotes

“The people we call the prophets I think are the earliest dissident intellectuals, and they're treated like most dissident intellectuals - very badly. They're imprisoned, driven into the desert. King Ahab, the epitome of evil in the Bible, condemned Elijah as a "hater of Israel." This is the first self-hating Jew, the origin of the term. It goes right up to the present. That's the history of intellectuals.”

PeopleThinkingFirstsSelfHateEvilTermKingsJewIsraelDrivenTreatedDesertProphetElijahEpitomeDissidentsAhab
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“We need a more complex understanding of writers working under authoritarian or repressive regimes. Something to replace this simpleminded, Cold War-ish equation in which the dissident in exile is seen as a bold figure, and those who choose to work with restrictions on their freedom are considered patsies for repressive governments. Let's not forget that most writers in history have lived under nondemocratic regimes: Shakespeare, Tolstoy, and Goethe didn't actually enjoy constitutionally guaranteed rights to freedom of speech.”

NeedsWarGovernmentEnjoyUnderstandingForgetRightsFiguresColdSpeechComplexesRegimesFreedom Of SpeechCold WarEquationsExileRestrictionDissidents
Author:Pankaj Mishra
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“You do not become a ''dissident'' just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society.”

WellsEndsResponsibilityEnemyCareersPositionCircumstancesOne DayConflictStructureComplexesCastsThrownPatriotismUnusualDissentSense Of ResponsibilityDissidentsBranded
Author:Vaclav Havel
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“Dissident Natan Sharansky writes that there are two kinds of states - “fear societies” and “free societies.”… The two societies make up two kinds of consciousness. The consciousness derived of oppression is despairing, fatalistic, and fearful of inquiry. It is mistrustful of the self and forced to trust external authority. It is premised on a dearth of self-respect. It is cramped … In contrast, the consciousness of freedom … is one of expansiveness, trust of the self, and hope. It is a consciousness of limitless inquiry … It builds up in a citizen a wealth of self-respect.”

WritingKindTwoSelfStatesWealthConsciousnessCitizensAuthorityOppressionSelf RespectFearfulContrastInquiryLimitlessFree SocietyDissidentsExpansiveness
Author:Naomi Wolf
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“Batman: a force of chaos in my world of perfect order. The dark side of the Soviet dream. Rumored to be a thousand murdered dissidents, they said he was a ghost. A walking dead man. A symbol of rebellion that would never fade as long as the system survived. Anarchy in black.”

MenWorldLongSaidDreamOrderForceSidesBlackDarkPerfectWalkingThousandChaosGhostSymbolsRebellionAnarchySovietFadesSurvivedThey SaidDark SideDead ManDissidentsWalking DeadNever Fade
Author:Mark Millar
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“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”

PeopleThinkingWayGivingViewsOpinionLimitsSmartCriticismCriticalDebateRangeAcceptablePassiveFreedom Of SpeechSpectrumLivelyObedientFree ThinkingDissidentsMedia Propaganda
Book:How the World Works
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“There is much to be done, there is much that can be done... One person of integrity, can make a difference, a difference of life and death. As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our lives will be filled with anguish and shame. What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs.”

KnowsNeedsChildrenPersonsLongDoneVoiceDifferencesFreedomForgetQualityOur LivesDependsIntegrityShameVictimFilledPrisonHungryBeing TrueMaking A DifferenceLife And DeathAnguishNot AloneDissidents
Author:Elie Wiesel
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“History has witnessed the failure of many endeavors to impose peace by war, cooperation by coercion, unanimity by slaughtering dissidents.... A lasting order cannot be established by bayonets.”

WarOrderMoneyLibertarianLastingEndeavorCooperationAnti WarAntiwarCoercionPeace WarGreat WarMake Peace Not WarDissidentsPeace Not WarBayonetsUnanimityCost Of War
Book:Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War
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“In the life of the human spirit, words are action, much more so than many of us realize who live in countries where freedom of expression is taken for granted. The leaders of totalitarian nations understand this very well. The proof is that words are precisely the action for which dissidents in those countries are being persecuted.”

HumansWellsCountryActionSpiritNationsRealizingLibertyLeaderTakenExpressionProofGrantedHuman SpiritFreedom Of ExpressionPersecutedTaken For GrantedDissidents
Book:Jimmy Carter
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“The dominant propaganda systems have appropriated the term "globalization" to refer to the specific version of international economic integration that they favor, which privileges the rights of investors and lenders, those of people being incidental. In accord with this usage, those who favor a different form of international integration, which privileges the rights of human beings, become "anti-globalist."”

PeopleHumansDifferentFormUsedTermHuman BeingsEconomyRightsEconomicEconomicsInvestingInternationalPrivilegeFavorsVersionsPropagandaInvestorsSovietDisgustingDominantIntegrationVulgarGlobalizationAccordUsageIdioticDissidentsLendersEconomic Integration
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“The dissident does not operate in the realm of genuine power at all. He is not seeking power. He has no desire for office and does not gather votes. He does not attempt to charm the public, he offers nothing and promises nothing. He can offer, if anything, only his own skin - and he offers it solely because he has no other way of affirming the truth he stands for. His actions simply articulate his dignity as a citizen, regardless of the cost.”

IfsWayDoeTruthActionDesirePowerCitizensPromiseCostOffersOfficeDignitySkinsVoteSeekingGenuineRealmsCharmAffirmingDissidents
Author:Vaclav Havel
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“While public school history courses in the United States stress the horrors of the German Nazi murder of 6 million Jews and Josef Stalin's pogroms against racial minorities and political dissidents in the Soviet Union, the facts that the U.S. Army's solution to the 'Indian Problem' was the prototype for the Nazi 'Final Solution' to the 'Jewish Problem' and that the North American Indian Reservation was the model for the twentieth century gulag and concentration camp, are conveniently overlooked.”

StatesFactsProblemSchoolPoliticalCoursesUnitedMillionsUnited StatesCenturyHorrorModelsSolutionsStressArmyMurderUnionsFinalsJewIndianMinoritiesConcentrationCampsSovietNaziSoviet UnionPublic SchoolTwentieth CenturyOverlookedAmerican IndianReservationsConcentration CampDissidentsPrototypeGulagsIndian ReservationsJosef StalinSchool History
Author:Jonathan Ott
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“No matter the specific techniques involved, historically mass surveillance has had several constant attributes. Initially, it is always the country’s dissidents and marginalized who bear the brunt of the surveillance, leading those who support the government or are merely apathetic to mistakenly believe they are immune. And history shows that the mere existence of a mass surveillance apparatus, regardless of how it is used, is in itself sufficient to stifle dissent. A citizenry that is aware of always being watched quickly becomes a compliant and fearful one.”

BelieveCountryMatterShowsGovernmentUsedExistenceSupportBearsInvolvedMassConstantMereTechniqueSufficientAttributesFearfulDissentSurveillanceImmuneSelf SufficientMarginalizedCitizenryApatheticDissidents
Book:No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the Surveillance State
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“I believe that it is only through empathy, that the pain experienced by an Algerian woman, a North Korean dissident, a Rwandan child or an Iraqi prisoner, becomes real to me and not just passing news. And it is at times like this when I ask myself, am I prepared - like Huck Finn - to give up Sunday school heaven for the kind of hell that Huck chose?”

GivingBelieveKindChildrenRealSchoolPainAsksI BelieveHeavenHellGiving UpNewsEmpathyPreparedPassingPassingsSundayPrisonerNorth KoreaKoreanDissidentsSunday SchoolNorth Korean
Author:Azar Nafisi
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“Civilization after civilization, it is the same. The world falls to tyranny with a whisper. The frightened are ever keen to bow to a perceived necessity, in the belief that necessity forces conformity, and conformity a certain stability. In a world shaped into conformity, dissidents stand out, are easily branded and dealt with. There is no multitude of perspectives, no dialogue. The victim assumes the face of the tyrant, self-righteous and intransigent, and wars breed like vermin. And people die.”

PeopleWorldWarSelfFacesCertainDiesFallBeliefForcePerspectiveCivilizationVictimAssumingTyrannyDialogueFrightenedConformityStabilityTyrantsRighteousBowsMultitudesStanding OutSelf RighteousDissidentsBrandedVermin
Author:Steven Erikson
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“Just because you can watch half-nude women on afternoon television or gay men kissing on the streets of nearly any major city does not mean America is free, as complacent liberals might think, much less too free, as conservatives often suggest. Just because most dissidents are left alone doesn't mean there is no police state, for that would be convenient indeed for the police statists: the idea that people ought not complain so long as they have the right to do so.”

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Author:Anthony Gregory
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“Intellectual freedom is essential -- freedom to obtain and distribute information, freedom for open-minded and unfearing debate and freedom from pressure by officialdom and prejudices. Such freedom of thought is the only guarantee against an infection of people by mass myths, which, in the hands of treacherous hypocrites and demagogues, can be transformed into bloody dictatorship.”

PeopleHandsPoliticalFreedomInformationEssentialsMassIntellectualPrejudicePressureMythDebatePropagandaGuaranteesTransformedDictatorshipBloodyPhysicistHypocriteOpen MindedFreedom Of ThoughtInfectionTreacherousDissidentsDemagogueryIntellectual FreedomAccess To InformationDemagogy
Book:Progress, coexistence, and intellectual freedom
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“In the last analysis, human security means a child who did not die, a disease that did not spread, an ethnic tension that did not explode, a dissident who was not silenced, a human spirit that was not crushed.”

HumansMeanChildrenLastsSpiritDiesSecurityDiseaseSpreadAnalysisTensionHuman SpiritCrushedDissidents
Book:Human development in South Asia: concepts, concerns, agenda for action
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“Madonna Kolbenschlag suggest that if an awakened woman forgoes innocence and denial, if she refuses to make compromises with herself and defect to patriarchy, then her only option becomes deviance. I chose deviance. I chose to be a loving dissident. To dance the dance of dissidence. This stance can be assumed from the inside or the outside. Whichever place we choose, the important thing is having the sustained will to be, act, and speak from the ground of our feminine souls.”

IfsImportantSoulSpeakImportant ThingsRefuseCompromiseInnocenceDenialFemininePatriarchyDefectsAwakenedStanceDissidentsDeviance
Author:Sue Monk Kidd
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“Indeed, the best practical reason to think that social media can help bring political change is that both dissidents and governments think they can. All over the world, activists believe in the utility of these tools and take steps to use them accordingly. And the governments they contend with think social media tools are powerful, too, and are willing to harass, arrest, exile, or kill users in response.”

ThinkingWorldBelieveReasonHelpingUseGovernmentPoliticalSocialPowerfulStepsMediaWillingToolsResponseSocial MediaPracticalsActivistUsersExileUtilityDissidentsPolitical Change
Author:Clay Shirky
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