Protest, Resistance and Revolution

Man is the unnatural animal, the rebel child of Nature, and more and more does he turn himself against the harsh and fitful hand that reared him.

Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called.

When a heretic wishes to avoid martyrdom he speaks of "Orthodoxy, True and False" and demonstrates that the True is his heresy.

The reformer for whom the world is not good enough finds himself shoulder to shoulder with him that is not good enough for the world.

Mutiny Acts are needed only by officers who command without authority. Divine right needs no whip.

It is not necessary to replace a guillotined criminal: it is necessary to replace a guillotined social system.

Freedom is the right to question and change the established way of doing things.

Familiarize yourself with the chains of bondage and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you.

The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be...The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

He said he would be willing to subscribe to the idea to resist force with force. Because he said otherwise it's like trying to cure a sick tribe of people. You try to cure them, in a way it is too slow. By the time you cure them with pacifism, they're all dead. That's not very efficient.

The proposed militarization of the nation not only immediately threatens us with war, it will also slowly but surely undermine the democratic spirit and the dignity of the individual in our land.

Real progress has never been possible without sacrifices… As long as nations systematically continue to prepare for war, fear, distrust and selfish ambitions will lead to war again.

My participation in the production of the atomic bomb consisted of one single act: I signed a letter to President Roosevelt in which I emphasized the necessity of conducting large-scale experimentation with regard to the feasibility of producing an atom bomb… I felt impelled to take the step because it seemed probable that the Germans might be working on the same problem with every prospect of success. I had no alternative to act as I did, although I have always been a convinced pacifist.

The more a country makes military weapons, the more insecure it becomes: if you have weapons, you become a target for attack.

Organized power can be opposed only by organized power. Much as I regret this, there is no other way.

It is unworthy of a great nation to stand idly by while small countries of great culture are being destroyed with a cynical contempt for justice.

The German calamity of years ago repeats itself: people acquiesce without resistance and align themselves with the forces of evil.

The quietly pacifist peaceful always die

I who have cursed

You [the Mensheviks] are pitiful isolated individuals; you are bankrupts; your role is played out. Go where you belong from now on—into the dustbin of history!

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

We must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend.

Now it must be business as usual.