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
To protest against injustice is the foundation of all our American democracy. — Thurgood Marshall
If it cannot solve this problem there will be unrest. There are now about 500 mostly peaceful protests a day across China over a variety of issues. — Tim Marshall
Better still - your history has shown how powerful a moral catharsis expressed through popular resistance to injustice can sometimes be; I have in mind the grassroots opposition to the Vietnam War. — Breyten Breytenbach
Any movement in history which attempts to perpetuate itself, becomes reactionary. — Josip Broz Tito
A downtrodden class... will never be able to make an effective protest until it achieves solidarity. — H. G. Wells
Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it. — Howard Zinn
The power of a movement lies in the fact that it can indeed change the habits of people. This change is not the result of force but of dedication, of moral persuasion. — Steve Biko
It is in the American tradition to stand up for one's rights--even if the new way to stand up for one's rights is to sit down. — John F. Kennedy
Movement is the universal language of personal freedom. — Louis Chevrolet
Agitation is the marshalling of the conscience of a nation to mold its laws. — Robert Peel
Political Movements Quotes
Now is the time to alter our government. Now is the time to stop the movement toward oligarchy. Now is the time to create a government which represents all Americans and not just the 1%... No more excuses. We must all become involved in the political process. — Bernie Sanders
I think that if the political and social movement groups and organizations that operate in this country today had the same kind of energetic commitment that the medical marijuana people have, many things could change in this country. — John Trudell
Look at what the Omar of Qatar is doing, for example - the King of Morocco, Jordan, Bahrain. There are reform movements taking place, efforts to broaden the political participation of the populations of the region. — Frank Carlucci
All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.
Movements have narratives. They tell stories, because they are not just about rearranging economics and politics. They also rearrange meaning. And they're not just about redistributing the goods. They're about figuring out what is good. — Marshall Ganz
Never depend upon institutions or government to solve any problem. All social movements are founded by, guided by, motivated and seen through by the passion of individuals. — Margaret Mead
Increased interest and participation by labor in the affairs of government should make for economic and political stability in the future. Labor has a constitutional and statutory right to participate. — John L. Lewis
There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.
The vision I see is not only a movement of direct democracy, of self- and co-determination and non-violence, but a movement in which politics means the power to love and the power to feel united on the spaceship Earth. — Petra Kelly
We are now seeing a movement that wishes to place race back at the forefront of our political thinking and, frighteningly, that viewpoint seems to be shared by those on the far left and the far right. We cannot remain cohesive as a nation if we are attacking each other on the basis. — Bret Weinstein
John Brown first swam into my vision in the 1960s when I was a political activist in the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement at Chapel Hill, where I went to university. — Russell Banks
A movie isn't a political movement, a party or even an article. It's just a film. At best it can add its voice to public outrage. — Ken Loach
Social Movements Quotes
Our movement took a grip on cowardly Marxism and from it extracted the meaning of socialism. It also took from the cowardly middle-class parties their nationalism. Throwing both into the cauldron of our way of life there emerged, as clear as a crystal, the synthesis -- German National Socialism. — Hermann Goring
Our movement took a grip on cowardly Marxism and from it extracted the meaning of socialism. It also took from the cowardly middle-class parties their nationalism. Throwing both into the cauldron of our way of life there emerged, as clear as a crystal, the synthesis -- German National Socialism. — Hermann Goering
The essence of trade unionism is social uplift. The labor movement has been the haven for the dispossessed, the despised, the neglected, the downtrodden, the poor. — A. Philip Randolph
In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.
If there's one thing that people fail to appreciate about the social justice movement where it interfaces with the academy is that just because what is being said is crazy to the point of absurdity does not mean that the strategic plan is absurd. — Bret Weinstein
One of the problems we're facing is, in my view, that there are no globalized, youth-led, grassroots social movements advocating for democratic culture across Muslim-majority societies. — Maajid Nawaz
It was the labor movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today. The 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, family leave, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, retirement plans. The cornerstones of the middle-class security all bear the union label. — Barack Obama
The only social justice movements worth fighting for are the struggles for justice where you lose, you lose, you lose- until you win. — I. F. Stone
There was no intellectual movement in American history called social Darwinism. The people who were supposedly the leaders of the social Darwinist movement never embraced something called social Darwinism. It didn't exist. — Jonah Goldberg
The trade union movement represents the organized economic power of the workers... It is in reality the most potent and the most direct social insurance the workers can establish. — Samuel Gompers
Feminism, unlike almost every other social movement, is not a struggle against a distinct oppressor - it's not the ruling class or the occupiers or the colonizers - it's against a deeply held set of beliefs and assumptions that we women, far too often, hold ourselves. — Kavita Ramdas
Protest Quotes
Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth. — William Faulkner
If we accept and acquiesce in the face of discrimination, we accept the responsibility ourselves. We should, therefore, protest openly everything ... that smacks of discrimination or slander. — Mary Mcleod Bethune
It is a sin to be silent when it is your duty to protest. — Abraham Lincoln
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. — Abraham Joshua Heschel
Oppression costs the oppressor too much if the oppressed stands up and protests. The protest need not be merely physical-the throwing of stones and bullets-if it is mental, spiritual; if it expresses itself in silent, persistent dissatisfaction, the cost to the oppressor is terrific. — W. E. B. Du Bois
Where globalization means, as it so often does, that the rich and powerful now have new means to further enrich and empower themselves at the cost of the poorer and weaker, we have a responsibility to protest in the name of universal freedom. — Nelson Mandela
Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly. — Mahatma Gandhi
When an individual is protesting society's refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him. — Bayard Rustin
Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism, are all too frequently those who . . . ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism-the right to criticize, the right to hold unpopular beliefs, the right to protest, the right of independent thought. — Margaret Chase Smith
Protest is when I say I don't like this. Resistance is when I put an end to what I don't like. Protest is when I say I refuse to go along with this anymore. Resistance is when I make sure everybody else stops going along too. — Ulrike Meinhof
Protest Songs Quotes
We can't forget what happened on May 4th, 1970, when four students gave up their lives because they had the American constitutional right of peaceful protest. They gave up their lives. And to sing that song in that spot on that anniversary was very emotional for us. — Graham Nash
It wasn't my natural inclination to get into writing protest songs. — David Sylvian
I won't be indulging in anger anymore, vehemently and self-righteously singing protest songs, and expecting them to bring peace to me or anyone else. — Susan Schneider
I understand why people get desensitized and roll their eyes when they hear a protest song, or even a politician making some flowery speech. It doesn't really change anything. — Conor Oberst
Labour itself is but a sorrowful song,The protest of the weak against the strong. — Frederick William Faber
After becoming famous once again - a 1976 song, "Hurricane," even marked a return to protest songwriting - [Bob] Dylan got addicted to drugs, found Jesus, left Jesus, and put out a lot of swill. — Bob Dylan
I'd love to try and teach Donald Trump how to write a song. I'd love to put him in a room with another person - someone who's protesting him at the Women's March. I'd put the three of us in a room and all write a song together. If that can happen, it proves we can get over our differences. — Nelly Furtado
Those songs [from church], I think, shaped to some degree how I would evolve as a writer, pentameter of songs, the melodies of those kind of hillbilly hymns - I used to refer to them - because they were not Southern gospel as much as they were passed down from Scottish Welsh Protestant hymnals. — Dwight Yoakam
I suspect many readers might associate [Bob Dylan] with one of the shortest phases of his career, the time from 1963 to '65 when he wrote his most famous "protest songs," like "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin.'" — Jay Michaelson
Peaceful Protest Quotes
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. — Bob Schaffer
An act of violence against any innocent person eludes moral justification, disgraces the millions of Americans and people throughout the world who have united in peaceful protest against police brutality, and dishonors our proud inheritance of nonviolent resistance. — Benjamin Crump
An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so. Now the law of nonviolence says that violence should be resisted not by counter-violence but by nonviolence. This I do by breaking the law and by peacefully submitting to arrest and imprisonment. — Mahatma Gandhi
It is time for the government of China to stop holding innocent religious figures in captivity merely for peacefully protesting China's occupation of Tibet. — Sam Brownback
We must never allow September 11th to become a time for protest and division. Instead, this day must remain a time for promoting peace and mutual respect. — Timothy Dolan
We must never allow September 11th to become a time for protest and division. Instead, this day must remain a time for promoting peace and mutual respect. — Timothy M. Dolan
As I said, this was my sarcastic summer. It was only long after that I recognized sarcasm as the protest of people who are weak. — John Knowles
I'm praying for healing for our nation. For retaliation that yields constructive results. Peaceful protests. We need each other. — Tituss Burgess
The methods of peaceful protests are not capable of being effective, because in reality most people pay little attention to things that are not abrasive. — Assata Shakur
I worry that a Trump presidency doesn't show the true face of America to the world, but I think that peaceful protest all around this country, it showed to the world who we really are. — Tim Kaine
The labor movement means just this: It is the last noble protest of the American people against the power of incorporated wealth. — Wendell Phillips
Now liberals compare their every riot, every traffic blockage, every Starbucks-window-smashing street protest to the civil rights movement -- which was only necessary because of them. — Ann Coulter
Protestant churches everywhere are gravitating toward union with the Roman Catholic Church. These religious movements are speeding the fulfillment of the prophecies of the resurrected Roman Empire. For 30 years I have been proclaiming this tremendous event over the air and in print. — Herbert W. Armstrong
'Rage' is the word that most often attaches itself to the Tea Party movement, and it's true that, from the outside looking in, their public demonstrations appear to be more enraged than any political events in America since the race riots and anti-war protests of the 1960s. — Jonathan Raban
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 . — Kumari Jayawardena
With every step I took away from her, the movement at my heart and between my legs grew more defined: I felt like a ventriloquist, locking his protesting dolls in to a trunk. — Sarah Waters
The use of the internet, the use of Twitter, the way protest movements developed...This is a different world. — Gus O'Donnell, Baron O'Donnell
Look what happened with the employment law in France-the law was withdrawn because the people marched in the streets. I think what we need is a global protest movement of people who won't give up. — Jose Saramago
Occupy is anything but a protest movement. That's why it has been so hard for news agencies to express or even discern the "demands" of the growing legions of Occupy participants around the nation, and even the world. — Douglas Rushkoff
If our republican form of government is perishing because communications - the infrastructure of that republic - is under the yoke of international business how, at last, do we save it? We must build a confrontational movement to reclaim our democracy, a movement committed to active and sustained protest against the present order. — Mark Lloyd
Okay, so here's my question: When did civility become incompatible with protest? Why do some people consider civility an antonym - anathema, even - to political action and dissent? Because, and I'm raising my voice, it's not. Have we forgotten how Mahatma Gandhi used nonviolent civil disobedience to free India from British rule and inspire civil rights movements worldwide? — Steven Petrow
I think that the most effective social protest that any artist can do would be things that come naturally and feel obvious. I think the Resist movement will continue among people who believe in science, who believe in rights for women, who believe in civil rights. — John Flansburgh
Today, practically every country outside the West is undergoing an intellectual, political, and cultural churning, from China to Bolivia, Egypt to Indonesia, but we haven't really had, after the 1960s, a major oppositional culture in Western Europe and America. The Occupy movement was so startling and welcome partly because it was the first such eruption of mass protests in decades. — Pankaj Mishra
I do a certain amount of work in religious communities on these issues. It's not the central focus of my work but it is certainly an area where I have worked a lot. It has gotten much better over the years, especially over the last couple years. There wasn't a religious environmental movement 15 years ago, but there is now - in the Catholic community, the Jewish community, the mainline Protestant community, and in the Evangelical community. — Bill McKibben
Social movements throughout history take place in people's minds. If we got 5,000 Americans who were talking about climate change to their neighbors and to their coworkers, and talking about this pledge, that would change the political and social landscape so much more than if 5,000 people got arrested for protesting a pipeline. — Margaret D. Klein
It`s difficult to judge people from 100 years ago by today`s standards. But I go back into the early middle part of the 19th century also. The know-nothings were a Protestant movement, and they rejected Catholics and didn`t want Catholics brought into America. — Steve King
Protestants, from the first, have been distinguished from their opponents by what they do not believe; to throw over one more dogma is, therefore, merely to carry the movement one stage further. Moral fervor is the essence of the matter. — Bertrand Russell
People are fed up - and I think quite rightfully so. But what are they proposing as an alternative to just being upset or feeling disillusioned or abandoned? That kind of protest movement really needs to happen on a much bigger scale, but there needs to be a clearer message. — Scarlett Johansson
From the theft of confidential cables to 21st century protest movements, to development breakthroughs that have the potential to change millions of lives, we are all in uncharted territory. — Hillary Clinton
Liberalism is fundamentally an ideology of liberation that has throughout history risen in protest against the totalitarian and anti-human movements of various kinds, such as communism and nazism. It is therefore natural that the Progress Party with its liberal base once again stands first in the line and takes up the fight when a new fascist ideology as Islamism is spreading throughout the world. — Carl I. Hagen
When a social movement adopts the compromises of legislators, it has forgotten its role, which is to push and challenge the politicians, not fall in meekly behind them. We who protest...are not politicians. We are citizens. Whatever politicians may do, let them first feel the full force of citizens who speak for what is right, not for what is winnable, in a shamefully timorous Congress. — Howard Zinn
The New Age movement, for all the validity of its protest and the value of some of its recommendations, is in truth a very old blind alley. There is a very long history to remind us of what happens when nature is our ultimate point of reference . . . . Nature knows no ethics. There is no right and wrong in nature; the controlling realities are power and fertility. — Lesslie Newbigin
Ecology movements, futurism, feminism, urbanism, protest and disarmament, personal individuation cannot alone save the world from the catastrophe inherent in our very idea of the world. They require a cosmological vision that saves the phenomenon 'world' itself, a move in soul that goes beyond measures of expediency to the archetypal source of our world's continuing peril: the fateful neglect, the repression, of the anima mundi. — James Hillman
... there is an irrational, cultish tendency in many intellectual movements, and Objectivism, alas, is no exception. Ayn Rand's personal obsession with loyalty did little to discourage this trend.... Rand had often protested, 'Protect me from my followers!' — Nathaniel Branden
It's a shame for women's history to be all about men--first boys, then other boys, then men men men. It reminds me of the way our school history textbooks were all about wars and elections, one war after another, with the dull periods of peace skimmed over whenever they occurred. (Our teachers deplored this and added extra units about social history and protest movements, but that was still the message of the books.) — Elizabeth Kostova
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