Alinsky 8 Quotes & Sayings

The classic statement on polarization comes from Christ: 'He that is not with me is against me.' (Luke 11:23) He allowed no middle ground to the moneychangers in the Temple. One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other. — Saul Alinsky

The only nonpartisan people are those who are dead. — Saul Alinsky

Although some Clinton biographers have been quick to label Alinsky a communist, he maintained that he never joined the Communist Party. — Bill Dedman

Dogma, Whatever Form It Takes, Is The Ultimate Enemy Of Human Freedom. — Saul Alinsky

We must face the bitter fact that we have forsaken our great dream of a life of, for, and by the people; that the burning passions and ideals of the American dream lie congealed by cold cynicism. Great parts of the masses of our people no longer believe that they have a voice or a hand in shaping the destiny of this nation. They have not forsaken democracy because of any desire or positive action of their own; they have been driven down into the depths of a great despair born of frustration, hopelessness, and apathy. A democracy lacking in popular participation dies of paralysis. — Saul Alinsky

Power goes to two poles-to those who've got the money and those who've got the people. — Saul Alinsky

The seventh rule of the ethics of means and ends is that generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics. The judgment of history leans heavily on the outcome of success or failure; it spells the difference between the traitor and the patriotic hero. There can be no such thing as a successful traitor, for if one succeeds he becomes a founding father. — Saul Alinsky

for Alinsky, democratic politics is basically a mechanism of legal extortion, justified by appeals to justice and equality. A — Dinesh D'Souza

To the organizer, compromise is a key and beautiful word. It is always present in the pragmatics of operation ... If you start with nothing, demand 100 percent, then compromise for 30 percent, you're 30 percent ahead. — Saul Alinsky

The American people were, in the beginning, Revolutionaries and Tories. The American people ever since have been Revolutionaries and Tories. They have been Revolutionaries and Tories regardless of the labels of the past and present. Regardless of whether they were Federalists, Democrat-Republicans, Whigs, Know-Nothings, Free Soilers, Unionists or Confederates, Populists, Republicans, Democrats, Socialists, Communists, or Progressives. They have been and are profiteers and patriots. They have been and are conservatives, liberals, and radicals. — Saul Alinsky

Do you like people? Most people claim that they like people with, of course, a "few exceptions." When the exceptions are added together it becomes clear that they include a vast majority of the people. It becomes equally clear that most people like just a few people, their kind of people, and either do not actively care for or actively dislike most of the "other" people. — Saul Alinsky

Life is there ahead of you and either one tests oneself in its challenges or huddles in the valleys of a dreamless day-to-day existence whose only purpose is the preservation of a illusory security and safety. The latter is what the vast majority of people choose to do, fearing the adventure into the known. — Saul Alinsky

The history of prevailing status quos shows decay and decadence infecting the opulent materialism of the Haves. The spiritual life of the Haves is a ritualistic justification of their possessions. — Saul D. Alinsky

Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy. — Saul Alinsky

Everybody owned stock in the Capone mob; in a way, he was a public benefactor. I remember one time when he arrived at his box seat in Dyche Stadium for a Northwestern football game on Boy Scout Day, and 8,000 scouts got up in the stands and screamed in cadence, 'Yea, yea, Big Al. Yea, yea, Big Al.' — Saul Alinsky

People cannot be free unless they are willing to sacrifice some of their interests to guarantee the freedom of others. The price of democracy is the ongoing pursuit of the common good by all of the people. — Saul Alinsky

If the ends don't justify the means, what does? — Saul Alinsky

'The Prince' was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. 'Rules for Radicals' is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away. — Saul Alinsky

It does not matter what you know about anything if you cannot communicate to your people. In that event, you are not even a failure. You're just not there. — Saul Alinsky

Organized business has assumed that greater profits would be pretty much of a cure-all, and it has to a major extent ignored the fact that the welfare of business rests upon the welfare of the consumers of a nation; that business or free enterprise will function in a democracy only so long as the democracy functions. — Saul Alinsky

I prize my own independence too much. And philosophically, I could never accept any rigid dogma or ideology, whether it's Christianity or Marxism ... The greatest crimes in history have been perpetrated by such religious and political and racial fanatics, from the persecutions of the Inquisition on down to Communist purges and Nazi genocide. — Saul Alinsky

Liberals like people with their heads, radicals like people with both their heads and their hearts. — Saul Alinsky

Obama wouldn't have been voted president if he weren't black. Somebody asked me over the weekend why does somebody earn a lot of money have a lot of money, because she's black. It was Oprah. No, it can't be. Yes, it is. There's a lot of guilt out there, show we're not racists, we'll make this person wealthy and big and famous and so forth ... If Obama weren't black he'd be a tour guide in Honolulu or he'd be teaching Saul Alinsky constitutional law or lecturing on it in Chicago. — Rush Limbaugh

I've never joined any organization - not even the ones I've organized myself. I prize my own independence too much. — Saul Alinsky

Life is an adventure of passion, risk, danger, laughter, beauty, love; a burning curiosity to go with the action to see what it is all about, to go search for a pattern of meaning, to burn one's bridges because you're never going to go back anyway, and to live to the end. — Saul D. Alinsky

Human beings do not like to look squarely into the face of tragedy. Gloom is unpopular. — Saul Alinsky

The organizers first job is to create the issues or problems, and organizations must be based on many issues. The organizer must first rub raw the resentments of the people of the community; fan the latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expression. He must search out controversy and issues, rather than avoid them, for unless there is controversy people are not concerned enough to act ... An organizer must stir up dissatisfaction and discontent. — Saul Alinsky

The organizer dedicated to changing the life of a particular community must first rub raw the resentments of the people of the community. — Saul Alinsky

Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have. — Saul Alinsky

An organizer working in and for an open society is in an ideological dilemma to begin with, he does not have a fixed truth
truth to him is relative and changing; everything to him is relative and changing ... To the extent that he is free from the shackles of dogma, he can respond to the realities of the widely different situations ... — Saul Alinsky

Curiosity and irreverence go together. Curiosity cannot exist without the other. Curiosity asks, "Is this true?" "Just because this has always been the way, is the best or right way of life, the best or right religion, political or economic value, morality?" To the questioner, nothing is sacred. He detests dogma, defies any finite definition of morality, rebels against any repression of a free, open search of ideas no matter where they may lead. He is challenging, insulting, agitating, discrediting. He stirs unrest. — Saul D. Alinsky

Mankind has been and is divided into three parts: the Haves, the Have-Nots, and the Have-a-Little, Want Mores. — Saul Alinsky