19+ Gene Sharp Quotes On Education

Gene Sharp is an American professor and political scientist. He is known for his extensive writings on nonviolent resistance, which have influenced numerous anti-government movements around the world. He is the founder of the Albert Einstein Institution, a non-profit organization devoted to the study and promotion of nonviolent action as a method of effecting political and social change. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Gene Sharp on education, leadership, love.

Dictatorships are never as strong as they think they are, and people are never as weak as they think they are. — Gene Sharp

The fall of one regime does not bring in a utopia. Rather, it opens the way for hard work and long efforts to build more just social, economic,and political relationships and the eradication of other forms of injustices and oppression. — Gene Sharp

As soon as you choose to fight with violence you're choosing to fight against your opponents best weapons and you have to be smarter than that. — Gene Sharp

Dictators are not in the business of allowing elections that could remove them from their thrones. — Gene Sharp

There should be no romanticism that international public opinion or even international diplomatic and economic pressure can defeat a coup without determined and strong defense by the attacked society itself — Gene Sharp

Whatever promises offered by dictators in any negotiated settlement, no one should ever forget that the dictators may promise anything to secure submission from their democratic opponents, and then brazenly violate those same agreements. — Gene Sharp

Contrary to popular opinion, even totalitarian dictatorships are dependent on the population and the societies they rule. — Gene Sharp

So, he reasoned, if you can identify the sources of a government's power - people working in civil service, police and judges, even the army - then you know what a dictatorship depends on for its existence. — Gene Sharp

Violence by the defenders will be used by the putschists to justify overwhelming repression which they want to use anyhow. It will be used to CLAIM that the putschists are saving the country from ‪‎terrorism or ‪#civil war‬, and are preserving "‪law‬ and ‪‎order‬ — Gene Sharp

You have a chance of learning -- if you want to and youre not arrogant. — Gene Sharp

Some foreign states will act against a dictatorship only to gain their own economic, political, or military control over the country. — Gene Sharp

That is straight out of Gandhi. If people are not afraid of the dictatorship, that dictatorship is in big trouble. … If you fight with violence, you are fighting with your enemy’s best weapon, and you may be a brave but dead hero. — Gene Sharp

By placing confidence in violent means, one has chosen the very type of struggle with which the oppressors nearly always have superiority. — Gene Sharp

Further, democratic negotiators, or foreign negotiation specialists accepted to assist in the negotiations, may in a single stroke provide the dictators with the domestic and international legitimacy that they had been previously denied because of their seizure of the state, human rights violations, and brutalities. Without that desperately needed legitimacy, the dictators cannot continue to rule indefinitely. — Gene Sharp

Nonviolent action involves opposing the opponent's power, including his police and military capacity, not with the weapons chosen by him but by quite different means. Repression by the opponent is used against his own power position in a kind of political "ju-jitsu" and the very sources of his power thus reduced or removed, with the result that his political and military position is seriously weakened or destroyed. — Gene Sharp

It's a nonsense assumption that you can get rid of terrorism with war. Terrorism is taking the lives of innocent people to gain your objective. War is basically the same thing on a larger scale. — Gene Sharp

Nonviolent struggle is the most powerful means available to those struggling for freedom. — Gene Sharp

Dictatorships usually exist primarily because of the internal power distribution in the home country. The population and society are too weak to cause the dictatorship serious problems, wealth and power are concentrated in too few hands. Although dictatorships may benefit from or be somewhat weakened by international actions, their continuation is dependent primarily on internal factors. — Gene Sharp

The degree of liberty or tyranny in any government is, it follows, in large degree a reflection of the relative determination of the subjects to be free and their willingness and ability to resist efforts to enslave them. — Gene Sharp

Life Lessons by Gene Sharp

1. Gene Sharp's work emphasizes the power of nonviolent resistance as a tool for social and political change. He demonstrates that nonviolent tactics can be used to effectively challenge oppressive regimes and oppressive systems of power.
2. Sharp's work also highlights the importance of education and organization in order to effectively mobilize people in support of a cause. He stresses the need for clear communication and strategic planning to ensure that nonviolent tactics are successful.
3. Finally, Sharp's work emphasizes the importance of understanding the motivations of those in power and using this knowledge to create effective strategies for nonviolent resistance.