110 Political Resistance Quotes

Following is our list of political resistance quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about political winning.

Quick Jump To

Famous Political Resistance Quotes

Protest is when I say...'I don't agree with something'.... Resistance is when I ensure that things with which I disagree no longer take place — Ulrike Meinhof

Resistance! Resistance! No oppressed people have ever secured their liberty without resistance! — Henry Highland Garnet

Passive resistance is a sport for gentleman (and ladies)-just like the pursuit of war, a heroic enterprise for the ruling classes but a grievous burden on the rest. — Kenneth Kaunda

When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. — Alexei Navalny

Where there is power, there is resistance. - Michel Foucault

Where there is power, there is resistance. — Michel Foucault

Violent resistance and nonviolent resistance share one very important thing in common: They are both a form of theater seeking an audience to their cause. — Julia Bacha

The history of liberty is a history of resistance. — Woodrow Wilson

True resistance begins with people confronting pain... and wanting to do something to change it. — Bell Hooks

Relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority. — Stanley Milgram

The only limit to the oppression of government is the power with which the people show themselves capable of opposing it. — Errico Malatesta

One can resist the invasion of an army but one cannot resist the invasion of ideas. — Victor Hugo

There are many resistance movements in the world, like the IRA for instance. But it is only Islamic resistance movements that are put on the terrorist list. This is what I am saying. — Ahmed Yassin

The era of resisting big government is never over. — Paul Gigot

Passivity is the same as defending injustice. — Deepak Chopra

The principle of nonviolent resistance seeks to reconcile the truths of two opposites-Acquiescence and violence -while avoiding the extremes and immoralities of both. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

Resistance Political Quotes

A nation can survive its fools, even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within....for the traitor appears not to be a traitor...he rots the soul of a nation...he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

It is the intense spirituality of India, and not any great political structure or social organisation that it has developed, that has enabled it to resist the ravages of time and the accidents of history. — Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

A system cannot fail those it was never meant to protect — Vann R. Newkirk II

Political resistance quote Try no to resist the changes that come in your way. Instead, let life live through you. And do not w
Try no to resist the changes that come in your way. Instead, let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come? How Rumi Can Change Your Life?

C. S. Lewis observed that almost all crimes of Christian history have come about when religion is confused with politics. Politics, which always runs by the rules of ungrace, allures us to trade away grace for power, a temptation the church has often been unable to resist. — Philip Yancey

Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? — Ronald Reagan

In order for peace to reign, one must speak the truth, and that is why I have spoken of a political abduction, ... ... Far from my own country, but in deep communion with all Haitians, including Haitians abroad, I continue to launch an appeal for peaceful resistance. — Jean-Bertrand Aristide

Political resistance quote The bamboo that bends is stronger than the oak that resists.
The bamboo that bends is stronger than the oak that resists.

But I really resist categories – that naming is a closing down of meaning. Women's art, political art – those categorisations perpetuate a certain kind of marginality which I'm resistant to. But I absolutely define myself as a feminist. — Barbara Kruger

What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. — Thomas Jefferson

We need a new kind of politics. Not the politics of governance, but the politics of resistance. The politics of opposition. The politics of joining hands across the world and preventing certain destruction. — Arundhati Roy

What I say is, that the real non-resistants can believe in direct action only, never in political action. For the basis of all political action is coercion; even when the State does good things, it finally rests on a club, a gun, or a prison, for its power to carry them through. — Voltairine de Cleyre

Political Winning Quotes

There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning. — Warren Buffett

The day that this country ceases to be free for irreligion it will cease to be free for religion - except for the sect that can win political power. — Robert H. Jackson

Politics is not about power. Politics is not about money. Politics is not about winning for the sake of winning. Politics is about the improvement of people's lives. — Paul Wellstone

Political resistance quote One small crack does not mean you are broken, it means that you were put to the test and you didn't
One small crack does not mean you are broken, it means that you were put to the test and you didn't fall apart.

Every great political campaign rewrites the rules; devising a new way to win is what gives campaigns a comparative advantage against their foes. — John Podhoretz

The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles. — Ayn Rand

Men who have changed the world never achieved their success by winning the chief citizens to their side, but always by stirring the masses. — Napoleon Bonaparte

Political resistance quote When words are both true and kind they can change the world.
When words are both true and kind they can change the world.

My advice is very simple: if you can win a small battle, it gives you confidence in the political process to take on bigger battles, and so it is very much a bottom-up grass-roots way of doing politics. — David Miliband

I've been watching politics for 35 or 40 years and you just never know. You can have one person win the Iowa caucus and then the whole picture changes ten minutes later. The same thing can happen again after New Hampshire. I have no idea what's going to happen with our country in the future. — Jackie Mason

Much as I would have liked to respond factually and truthfully to each and every piece of misinformation spread by the Brexit campaign, it was important that I stayed out of the domestic political debate. It was David Cameron's task to win the UK referendum, not ours. — Jean-Claude Juncker

Revolutions and revolutionary wars are inevitable in class society, and without them it is impossible to accomplish any leap in social development and to overthrow the reactionary ruling classes and therefore impossible for the people to win political power. — Mao Zedong

Politics Support Quotes

Democracy needs support and the best support for democracy comes from other democracies. Democratic nations should come together in an association designed to help each other and promote what is a universal value - democracy. — Benazir Bhutto

Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.) — Saul Alinsky

Anyone who was willing to change a friendship or not do business because of who somebody supports in politics is not somebody who has a lot of character. — Jared Kushner

Political resistance quote Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.

There are people who've said that I'm being brave for being openly supportive of gay marriage, gay adoption... With all due respect, I humbly dissent. I am not being brave, I'm a decent human being... Love is a human experience, not a political statement — Anne Hathaway

I don't think that 60-70 percent of working-class white voters would have supported a Muslim ban before Donald Trump said something about a Muslim ban. — James David Vance

Labour's support in Scotland depends on their ability to be electable. If they are divided and unelectable, what's the point? — Nicola Sturgeon

Political resistance quote Be gentle with yourself, you're doing the best you can.
Be gentle with yourself, you're doing the best you can.

The GSEs became powerful advocates for their own bottom lines, providing substantial financial support for political candidates who supported the GSE agenda. — Jerome Powell

I feel the Conservatives are doing really well both in attracting votes from British Indians and also having successful British Indians in the party. — Rishi Sunak

The political status legislation which emerged in Congress in 1990 and 1991 did not receive the support needed for enactment into law during my tenure as Attorney General. — Dick Thornburgh

What is politics but persuading the public to vote for this and support that and endure these for the promise of those? — Gilbert Highet

Political Opposition Quotes

There is nothing I dread so much as the division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our constitution. — John Adams

When feminism does not explicitly oppose racism, and when antiracism does not incorporate opposition to patriarchy, race and gender politics often end up being antagonistic to each other and both interests lose. — Kimberle Williams Crenshaw

My political position springs from my being a novelist. In so far as I am concerned, politics and the novel are an indivisible case and I can categorically state that I became politically committed because I am a novelist, not the opposite. — Ghassan Kanafani

Political resistance quote There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion.
There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion.

In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation. The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall not eat. — Leon Trotsky

Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

The U.K. needs a strong opposition, and Labour shows no signs of being capable of being that. The SNP is filling that void and will go on seeking to do that. — Nicola Sturgeon

Political resistance quote Be the person your dog thinks you are.
Be the person your dog thinks you are.

I came into politics because of my opposition to what a Tory Government was doing to the community I grew up in. — Nicola Sturgeon

I am tolerant of all creeds. Yet if any sect suffered itself to be used for political objects I would meet it by political opposition. In my view church and state should be separate, not only in form, but fact. Religion and politics should not be mingled. — Millard Fillmore

Politics and merit are opposite ends of a spectrum. More political organizations are less productive, have less inequality, and top performers opt out. More merit-based organizations have higher productivity, more inequality, and higher odds of internal fracture. — Naval Ravikant

In order to get the power and retain it, it is necessary to love power; but love of power is not connected with goodness, but with qualities which are the opposite of goodness, such as pride, cunning, cruelty. — Leo Tolstoy

Political Struggle Quotes

The point is change can come about, but it only comes about when millions of people are actively involved in political struggle, the billionaires may have the money, but we have the people. — Bernie Sanders

The Republican and Democratic parties, or, to be more exact, the Republican-Democratic party, represent the capitalist class in the class struggle. They are the political wings of the capitalist system and such differences as arise between them relate to spoils and not to principles. — Eugene V. Debs

Justice is never given; it is exacted and the struggle must be continuous for freedom is never a final fact, but a continuing evolving process to higher and higher levels of human, social, economic, political and religious relationship. — A. Philip Randolph

Political resistance quote Treat everyone with politeness and kindness, not because they are nice, but because you are.
Treat everyone with politeness and kindness, not because they are nice, but because you are.

Hope is essential to any political struggle for radical change when the overall social climate promotes disillusionment and despair. — Bell Hooks

A great civilization is not conquered from without, until it has destroyed itself from within. The essential causes of Rome's decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, her consuming wars. — Will Durant

Why are so many problems today perceived as problems of intolerance, rather than as problems of inequality, exploitation, or injustice? Why is the proposed remedy tolerance, rather than emancipation, political struggle, or even armed struggle? — Slavoj Žižek

Political resistance quote The stronger you become, the gentler you will be.
The stronger you become, the gentler you will be.

The IRA has abandoned its armed struggle in pursuit of its goals by political means. This must be fully acknowledged. Continued challenge does nothing but obstruct and inhibit the peace process. — James T. Walsh

The party of swindlers and thieves is putting forward its chief swindler and its chief thief for the presidency. We must vote against him, struggle against him. — Alexei Navalny

...a political struggle that does not have women at the heart of it, above it, below it, and within it is no struggle at all. — Arundhati Roy

There are few talents so richly rewarded - especially in politics and the media - as the ability to portray parasites as victims, and portray demands for preferential treatment as struggles for equal rights. — Thomas Sowell

People Writing About Political Resistance

Name Quotes Likes
Read quotes by Ulrike Meinhof

Ulrike Meinhof

10 260
Read quotes by Kenneth Kaunda

Kenneth Kaunda
quotes on education

13 254
Read quotes by Alexei Navalny

Alexei Navalny
quotes on war, peace and democracy

85 52
Read quotes by Michel Foucault

Michel Foucault
quotes on power, knowledge and education

169 3761
Read quotes by Julia Bacha

Julia Bacha

9 55
Read quotes by Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson
quotes on democracy, education and public administration

464 4608

More Political Resistance Quotes

...it was always our view that in order to attain this [proletarian revolution] and the other far more important aims of the future social revolution, the working class must first take possession of the organised political power of the state and by its aid crush the resistance of the capitalist class and organise society anew. — Friedrich Engels

19 years in a maximum security penal colony. The number of years does not matter. I perfectly understand that, like many political prisoners, I am sitting on a life sentence. Where life is measured by the term of my life or the term of life of this regime. The sentencing figure is not for me. It is for you. You, not me, are being frightened and deprived of the will to resist. You are being forced to surrender your country of Russia without a fight to the gang of traitors, thieves, and scoundrels who have seized power. Putin must not achieve his goal. Do not lose the will to resist. — Alexei Navalny

Both morally and practically, segregation is to me a basic injustice. Since I believe it to be so, I must attempt to remove it. There are three ways in which one can deal with an injustice. (a) One can accept it without protest. (b) On can seek to avoid it. (c) One can resist the injustice non-violently. To accept it is to perpetuate it. — Bayard Rustin

The truth is, that, even with the most secure tenure of office, during good behavior, the danger is not, that the judges will be too firm in resisting public opinion, and in defence of private rights or public liberties; but, that they will be ready to yield themselves to the passions, and politics, and prejudices of the day. — Joseph Story

Victory will never be found by taking the path of least resistance. — Winston Churchill

Highly developed spirits often encounter resistance from mediocre minds. — Albert Einstein

I started my political life in the Resistance. It was there that I had my first responsibility. — Francois Mitterrand

For those of us who can't be active on the front lines - and this will be most of us - our job is to create a culture that will encourage and promote political resistance. The main tasks will be loyalty and material support. — Lierre Keith

When you look at the consequences of climate change, at rainforest deforestation, at antibiotic resistance, these are not necessarily political issues, but rather issues that have the ability to threaten our species. — Moby

Passive resistance seeks to rejoin politics and religion and to test all our actions in the light of ethical principles. — Mahatma Gandhi

All of the American's foreign wars have been fought with foes either too weak to resist them or too heavily engaged elsewhere to make more than a half-hearted attempt. The combats with Mexico and Spain were not wars; they were simply lynchings. — H. L. Mencken

Women are foils to men in South Korea. It is hard for women to take a lead role even in NGOs for political resistance. Men think women should do trivial things on the margins. They think women should be merely a seasoning for a dish. I feel anger and sorrow seeing this. — Kim Hyesoon

The end of all political associations is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man; and these rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance of oppression. — Thomas Paine

So long as our land is occupied it is the right of the Palestinian people and their factions to combine resistance and political activities. Resistance and its arms are directed against the occupation while political activity is part of re-arranging the Palestinian home. — Khaled Mashal

Beginning with adolescence, my political formation was oriented in the ideological direction of Marxism. It was natural, being that my thinking was influenced by an atmosphere of active critical resistance. That was the way it was during all of the dictatorship and up to the Revolution of 1974. — Jose Saramago

Political power goes much deeper than one suspects; there are centres and invisible, little-known points of support; its true resistance, its true solidity is perhaps where one doesn't expect it. — Michel Foucault

A certain type of person strives to become a master over all, and to extend his force, his will to power, and to subdue all that resists it. But he encounters the power of others, and comes to an arrangement, a union, with those that are like him: thus they work together to serve the will to power. And the process goes on. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived, have forced me to take a part in resisting them, and to commit myself on the boisterous ocean of political passions. — Thomas Jefferson

Non-violent resistance implies the very opposite of weakness. Defiance combined with non-retaliatory acceptance of repression from one's opponents is active, not passive. It requires strength, and there is nothing automatic or intuitive about the resoluteness required for using non-violent methods in political struggle and the quest for Truth. — Mahatma Gandhi

I've decided that the political context is such that the only way reform will finally come about in the Russian military is that the deterioration goes beyond the point to which these old generals can stand up there and resist it. — William Odom

You know, compromise can't be a dirty word in American politics. There's plenty to argue about. Trump administration is still talking about ridiculous tax cuts for the wealthiest of the wealthy. That should be resisted with every fiber of our being. — Hillary Clinton

In politics nothing is immutable. Events carry within them an invincible power. The unwise destroy themselves in resistance. The skillful accept events, take strong hold of them and direct them. — Napoleon Bonaparte

The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition, we must lead it. — Barack Obama

The NGO-ization of politics threatens to turn resistance into a well-mannered, reasonable, salaried, 9-to-5 job. With a few perks thrown in. Real resistance has real consequences. And no salary. — Arundhati Roy

Imagine how a Teddy Kennedy or a Bill Clinton would take the news that one woman in ten, say, has the power to resist his blandishments by deadly force, and you'll get a perfect idea of how a Charles Schumer or a George Bush feels about armed taxpayers. — L. Neil Smith

I've decided that the political context is such that the only way reform will finally come about in the Russian military is that the deterioration goes beyond the point to which these old generals can stand up there and resist it. — William Eldridge Odom

The body must be regarded as a site of social, political, cultural and geographical inscriptions, production or constitution. The body is not opposed to culture, a resistant throwback to a natural past; it is itself a cultural, the cultural product. — Elizabeth Grosz

From long familiarity, we know what honor is. It is what enables the individual to do right in the face of complacency and cowardice. It is what enables the soldier to die alone, the political prisoner to resist, the singer to sing her song, hardly appreciated, on a side street. — Mark Helprin

You have climate change and antibiotic resistance which are two of the biggest horses of the apocalypse, and they're basically breathing on our necks, and there's no political will or effort being expended to deal with them. — Moby

Our Bill of Rights, the most precious part of our legal heritage, is under subtle and pervasive attacks... In the struggle between our world and Communism, the temptation to imitate totalitarian security methods must be resisted day by day... When the rights of any individual or group are chipped away, the freedom of all erodes. — Earl Warren

Never did anyone ever stay longer than ten years because the resistance grows fiercer as your presence grows longer [in Afghanistan]. I don't think we are going to be any exception. What made us exempt from history? — Sayings

The challenge for Muslims in America is to respect the fears of ordinary people while resisting the exploitation of those fears by political parties, lobbies and sectors of the media. To meet this challenge, Muslims must reassess their own involvement, behavior and contributions in American society. — Tariq Ramadan

And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles. So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries. — Kurt Vonnegut

I support people if they are called to be active and protesting, resisting, working for restoration or, for more just political conversation. I also support everyone in listening to each other. We're at a very interesting and disturbing time in terms of our civil discourse. And yet always, in disturbance, things are shook up and that shaking can lead to deeper maturity and a deeper discourse. May it be so. — Gangaji

To those who say "Sufism is apolitical" or "no politics," I respond: "No politics is politics." Look at the very old African Sufi tradition, the Asian Sufi tradition, or the North African Sufi tradition. Then you get it and understand what Sufism is all about wisdom, courage and resistance. — Tariq Ramadan

In Conclusion

Which quotation resonated with you best? Did you enjoy our collection of political resistance quotes? Or may be you have a slogan about political resistance to suggest. Let us know using our contact form.

Citation

Feel free to cite and use any of the quotes in this collection of political resistance quotations. For popular citation styles(APA, Chicago, MLA), please use this citation page.

Embed HTML Link

Copy and paste this HTML code in your webpage