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Protest Quotes

Browse 1024 quotes about Protest.

Protest Quotes

“To protest in the name of morality against 'excesses' or 'abuses' is an error which hints on active complicity. There are no 'abuses' or 'excesses' here, simpily an all-pervasive system.”

Names Morality Abuse Errors Active Protest Excess Hints Complicity

Book:Djamila Boupacha: the story of the torture of a young Algerian girl which shocked liberal French opinion

Source: Djamila Boupacha: the story of the torture of a young Algerian girl which shocked liberal French opinion

“Rosa Parks' courage, determination, and tenacity continue to be an inspiration to all those committed to non-violent protest and change nearly half a century later.”

Inspiration Half Century Determination Committed Violent Parks Protest Tenacity Rosa Non Violent Half A Century

Author:Bob Filner

“The more one has suffered, the less one demands. To protest is a sign one has traversed no hell.”

Hell Demand Protest

Author:Emile M. Cioran

“He who protests is an enemy; he who opposes is a corpse.”

Enemy Protest Corpses

Author:Pol Pot

“I plan to send my liver somewhere in France, to protest foie gras (liver pate) ... I plan to have handbags made from my skin ... and an umbrella stand made from my seat.”

Made Plans Skins France Seats Protest Liver Umbrella Handbags

Author:Ingrid Newkirk

“Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile. In protest, I declined election to the National Institute of Arts and Letters some years ago, and now I must decline the Pulitzer Prize.”

Years Art Safe Years Ago Letters Election Propaganda Protest Prize Decline Polite Compulsion Obedient Institute

Author:Sinclair Lewis

“I and some colleagues came to the conclusion that as violence in this country was inevitable, it would be wrong and unrealistic for African leaders to continue preaching peace and non-violence at a time when the government met our peaceful demands with force. It was only when all else had failed, when all channels of peaceful protest had been barred to us, that the decision was made to embark on violent forms of political struggle.”

Source: One nation, one country

“Liberals believe that crime is inextricably linked with poverty. In reality, most poor people never resort to crime, and some wealthy people commit evil acts to enrich themselves further. Harlem, East Los Angeles, the South side of Chicago are not the poorest communities in the United States. According to a new U.S. Bureau of the Census report, the poorest communities are Shannon County, South Dakota, followed by Starr, Texas, and Tunica, Mississippi. Have you ever heard of these residents rioting to protest their living conditions?”

“You may even have Jews in your midst who did not learn their way of life from us, and did not inherit it from a Jewish forebear. We may have authentic gentiles in our midst: these single protests are of no account; they are extreme and irrelevant variations.”

Way May Accounts Jew Extremes Protest Midst Irrelevant Variation Gentiles

Author:Maurice Samuel

“And your doubt can become a good quality if you train it. It must become knowing, it must become criticism. Ask it, whenever it wants to spoil something for you, why something is ugly, demand proofs from it, test it, and you will find it perhaps bewildered and embarrassed, perhaps also protesting. But don't give in, insist on arguments, and act in this way, attentive and persistent, every single time, and the day will come when, instead of being a destroyer, it will become one of your best workers-perhaps the most intelligent of all the ones that are building your life.”

“It seemed like this was one big Prozac nation, one big mess of malaise. Perhaps the next time half a million people gather for a protest march on the White House green it will not be for abortion rights or gay liberation, but because we're all so bummed out.”

Source: Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America

“In our current society, it is considered a weakness to be female and a treason to protest this. Highlighting inequality results in aggressive insults and threats, all of which are propped up by the repeated narrative now that women are 'playing the gender card'. And this is the final insult. That of all the unfair things associated with women - the violence and insults, the financial oppression, the very undermining of our worth as human beings - it is the acknowledgement of these inequalities that gives us some kind of unfair advantage over the men who benefit from them.”

“Protest to be effective, must be followed by resolute action and at this crisis in world history when materialistic energy aims at overthrowing spiritual energy and moral values, action needs to develop into a world crusade for the Spiritual Humanity.”

World Needs Action Spiritual Values Humanity Energy Women Moral Aim Crisis Protest World History Materialistic Crusades Resolute Moral Values Spiritual Energy

Author:Vida Goldstein

“It's funny how social activists usually protest against the only things that have a credible chance of achieving the activists' goals.”

Funny Social Goal Chance Achieve Injustice Protest Activist Setting Goals Credible

Author:Craig Reucassel

“Every new invention has been a protest of genius against the masses.”

Has Beens Genius Mass Invention Protest New Inventions

Author:Adolf Hitler

“Today women in many countries are taking part in various types of movements of protest, some of which are serious struggles for economic and social emancipation .”

Country Today Social Women Struggle Economic Movement Serious Type Various Protest Womens Rights Disobedience Emancipation Civil Disobedience

Author:Kumari Jayawardena

“You can't just sit around and make protest albums all your life; eventually it comes to the point where you have to do something.”

Life Inspire Albums Protest

Author:Paul Kantner

“As for those who protest that I am robbing people of the great comfort and consolation they gain from Christianity, I can only say that Christianity includes hell, eternal torture for the vast majority of humanity, for most of your relatives and friends. . . . If I could feel that I had robbed anybody of his faith in hell, I should not be ashamed or regretful.”

Source: Why I Quit Going to Church: With Answers to Critics and Correspondents

“This huge and terrible industry [the slave trade] was blessed by all churches and for a long time aroused absolutely no religious protest. . . . In the eighteenth century, a few dissenting Mennonites and Quakers in America began to call for abolition, as did some freethinkers like Thomas Paine.”

Source: Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume

“When I sang my American folk melodies in Budapest, Prague, Tiflis, Moscow, Oslo, or the Hebrides or on the Spanish front, the people understood and wept or rejoiced with the spirit of the songs. I found that where forces have been the same, whether people weave, build, pick cotton, or dig in the mine, they understand each other in the common language of work, suffering, and protest.”

Source: Paul Robeson speaks: writings, speeches, interviews, 1918-1974

“I protest that we fans are being emotionally starved and frustrated by long periods of perfect performance of these batteries. More over, when there are nothing but strikes and balls going on, you relapse into your worries over the Bank of England, or something else.”

Long Perfect Worry Fans Periods Performances Baseball Balls England Strikes Presidential Protest Frustrated Batteries Relapse

Author:Herbert Hoover

“Disobedience, the rarest and most courageous of the virtues, is seldom distinguished from neglect, the laziest and commonest of the vices.”

Virtue Revolution Vices Protest Courageous Neglect Distinguished Rebellious Disobedience Civil Disobedience Nonviolent Resistance

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

Source: 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

“Jacobins, I have a truth to tell you. You do not know your most deadly enemies; they are the constitutional priests. It is they who protest most in the provinces against anarchists, disorganisers, Dantonism, Robespierrism, Jacobinism... Do not cherish any longer the popular errors; cut at the roots of superstition! Declare openly that the priests are your enemies.”

Knows Enemy Cutting Revolution Roots Errors Protest Priests Cherish Superstitions Anarchist Provinces French Revolution

Author:Jean-Paul Marat

“I can't help it if the ladies take note of me; I am not going to protest.”

Ifs I Can Helping Notes Protest

Author:Nelson Mandela

“Early in my career, people wanted to hear music about protest, about trying to change things.”

People Trying Wanted Careers Protest Trying To Change

Author:Ice Cube

“Our records, if you have a dark sense of humor, were funny, but our records weren't about comedy. They were about protests, fantasy, confrontation and all that.”

Ifs Funny Dark Fantasy Records Comedy Protest Sense Of Humor Dark Fantasy Confrontation

Author:Ice Cube

“The new kind of music seems to create not from the heart but from the head. Its composers think rather than feel. They have not the capacity to make their works exalt - they meditate, protest, analyze, reason, calculate and brood, but they do not exalt.”

Thinking Feels Heart Kind Reason Seems Capacity Protest Composer

Author:Sergei Rachmaninoff

“A protest song is a song that's so specific that you cannot mistake it for bullshit.”

Song Mistake Protest Bullshit Protest Songs

Author:Phil Ochs

“I stand ready to negotiate, but I want no part of laws: I acknowledge none; I protest against every order with which some authority may feel pleased on the basis of some alleged necessity to over-rule my free will. Laws: We know what they are, and what they are worth! They are spider webs for the rich and mighty, steel chains for the poor and weak, fishing nets in the hands of government.”

Knows Want Feels May Hands Government Law Order Poor Rich Ready Authority Weak Bases Chains Acknowledge Fishing Protest Free Will Steel Spiders Spider Web

Author:Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

“Liberalism, austere in political trifles, has learned ever more artfully to unite a constant protest against the government with a constant submission to it.”

Government Political Constant Liberalism Protest Submission Trifles

Author:Alexander Herzen

“In the face of this approaching disaster, it behooves men and women not yet overcome by war madness to raise their voice of protest, to call the attention of the people to the crime and outrage which are about to be perpetrated on them.”

People Men War Faces Voice Attention Crime Men And Women Overcoming Madness Raises Disaster Protest Outrage

Book:Red Emma Speaks: An Emma Goldman Reader

Source: Red Emma Speaks: An Emma Goldman Reader

“Monastic life thus became a living protest against the secularization of Christianity, against the cheapening of grace.”

Christianity Grace Protest Monastic Life

Author:Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Our Southside is a place apart: each piece of our living is a protest.”

Book:Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays: The Drinking Gourd/What Use Are Flowers?

Source: Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays: The Drinking Gourd/What Use Are Flowers?

“I am deeply worried because we are seeing an unleashing of violence by 2,000 to 3,000 thugs who come to smash and loot. My objective is to avoid mistakes by the police, so that people can protest in safety.”

People Mistake Violence Seeing Police Safety Objectives Worried Protest Thug Unleashing

Author:Nicolas Sarkozy

“My drawings and paintings were done as an act of protest; I was trying by means of my work to convince the world that it is ugly, sick and hypocritical.”

World Trying Mean Art Done Painting Sick Ugly Drawing Painter Convince Protest Ugliness Convincing Hypocritical Black Humor Cruel World Imperfect World Drawing And Painting

Author:George Grosz

“I was disappointed, not because we had lost the war but because our people had allowed it to go on for so many years, instead of heeding the few voices of protest against all that mass insanity and slaughter.”

People Years War Lost Voice Goes On Mass Insanity Protest Disappointed Slaughter

Book:The autobiography of George Grosz: a small yes and a big no

Source: The autobiography of George Grosz: a small yes and a big no

“I’m so revolted by writers taking themselves seriously that, as a kind of protest, I’ve deprioritized the role of writing in my life. I do it when I’ve not got anything better to do – and even then I often do nothing instead.”

Writing Kind Roles Protest

Author:Geoff Dyer

“I am the product of the sustained indignation of a branded grandfather, the militant protest of my grandmother, the disciplined resentment of my father and mother, and the power of the mass action of the church.”

Action Mother Father Church Products Mass Grandmother Protest Resentment Grandfather My Grandmother Indignation Militant Branded

Author:Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.

“On the mainland, a rain was falling. The famous Seattle rain. The thin, gray rain that toadstools love. The persistent rain that knows every hidden entrance into collar and shopping bag. The quiet rain that can rust a tin roof without the tin roof making a sound in protest. The shamanic rain that feeds the imagination. The rain that seems actually a secret language, whispering, like the ecstasy of primitives, of the essence of things.”

Knows Seems Fall Language Sound Imagination Secret Quiet Rain Essence Bags Protest Gray Ecstasy Shopping Roof Persistent Whispering Entrances Collars Rust Seattle Tin Toadstools

Author:Tom Robbins

“One who comes to the Court must come to adore, not to protest. That's the new gloss on the First Amendment.”

History Court Protest Amendments Adore World History Gloss

Author:William O. Douglas

“In the name of God and humanity I protest!”

War Humanity Names Civil War Protest

Book:Advance and Retreat: Personal Experiences in the United States and Confederate States Armies

Source: Advance and Retreat: Personal Experiences in the United States and Confederate States Armies

“Ask yourself why totalitarian dictatorships find it necessary to pour money and effort into propaganda for their own helpless, chained, gagged slaves, who have no means of protest or defense. The answer is that even the humblest peasant or the lowest savage would rise in blind rebellion, were he to realize that he is being immolated, not to some incomprehensible noble purpose, but to plain, naked human evil.”

Source: Ayn Rand Reader

“Real crying usually lasts two minutes or less, but may continue for five. After that point, the child is merely complaining... I would require him to stop the protest crying, usually by offering him a little more of whatever caused the original tears.”

May Children Littles Two Real Lasts Five Minutes Cry Tears Originals Complaining Protest Offering

Book:Dare to Discipline

Source: Dare to Discipline

“One cannot help being impressed by the protesters. They have begun each day of the protest in Kiev in prayer and all activities are accomplished with a collective sense of respect, kindness, and an intention to conduct a peaceful revolution.”

Helping Prayer Kindness Revolution Praying Activity Intention Peaceful Accomplished Each Day Collectives Protest Impressed Peaceful Revolution Kiev

Author:Bob Schaffer

“I do not know of any salvation for society except through eccentrics, misfits, dissenters, people who protest.”

People Knows Salvation Protest Misfits

Author:William O. Douglas

“Each family of the United States military now attends to their loved ones funeral with a wrenching worry that it will be met possibly with a protest or a demonstration.”

States America United Worry United States Military Mets Protest Funeral Loved Ones Demonstration United States Military

Author:Steve Buyer

“For many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was about protest and prayer. Legs are not lips and walking is not kneeling. And yet our legs uttered songs. Even without words, our march was worship. I felt my legs were praying.”

Song Felt Prayer Praying Walking Worship Lips Legs Protest March Montgomery Kneeling

Author:Abraham Joshua Heschel

“The effect of sincerity is to give one's work the character of a protest. The painter, being concerned only with conveying his impression, simply seeks to be himself and no one else.”

Giving Character Effects Concerned Impression Painter Protest Sincerity Conveying

Author:Claude Monet

“I'd been a child during the 1960s when women burned their bras and hundreds of thousands gathered in protests against the Vietnam War. As a climber, I've felt connected to a similar nonconformist culture, one opposed to society's increasing materialism, pollution and corruption. Our approach to the rock—clean, traditional climbing, with the least dependence on equipment—was an extension of this ethical viewpoint.”

“In a world filled with hate, prejudice, and protest, I find that I too am filled with hate, prejudice, and protest.”

World Hate Sports Prejudice Filled Protest

Author:Bob Gibson