Quotes & Sayings About Civil Disobedience

Satyagraha does not begin and end with civil disobedience. — Mahatma Gandhi

Before civil disobedience can be practised on a vast scale, people must learn the art of civil or voluntary obedience. — Mahatma Gandhi

Satyagraha and civil disobedience and fasts have nothing in common with the use of force, veiled or open. — Mahatma Gandhi

Civil disobedience is an act of love. — Tim DeChristopher

If we don't rebel, if we're not physically in an active rebellion, then it's spiritual death. — Chris Hedges

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was seen sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar because a higher moral law was involved. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks, before submitting to certain unjust laws of the Roman empire. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The time has come, or is about to come, when only large-scale civil disobedience, which should be nonviolent, can save the populations from the universal death which their governments are preparing for them. — Bertrand Russell

[Theseus] soon found himself involved in factions and troubles; those who long had hated him had now added to their hatred contempt; and the minds of the people were so generally corrupted, that, instead of obeying commands with silence, they expected to be flattered into their duty. — Plutarch

Yes, what has happened is we have moved from responding to these terrorist attacks as acts of civil disobedience to getting to the point after September 11 that we said, no, this is not just civil disobedience, this is an act of war. — Marsha Blackburn

The Birmingham campaign was a repeat of SCLC's 1961 campaign in Albany, Georgia, which turned out a complete failure. King was banking on being able to fill up the jails and still have recruits willing to engage in civil disobedience, shutting the system down, but the authorities simply made their jails "bottomless" by shipping detainees elsewhere. A couple years later, black residents of Albany rioted, suggesting what they thought about their experience with nonviolence (these riots are not mentioned in most chronologies of the movement). — Anonymous

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season. — Martin Luther King Jr.

So how do the people resist unjust authority, which, we all agree, they must and should do and have done in the past? The best solution anyone has come up with is to say that violent revolutions can be avoided (and therefore, violent mobs legitimately suppressed) if 'the people' are understood to have the right to challenge the laws through nonviolent civil disobedience. — David Graeber

Voting for the right is doing nothing for it. — Henry David Thoreau

Peaceful civil disobedience to unjust laws, which I support with every fiber of my being, can sometimes be necessary at any level of government. It falls upon the people, in the last resort, to stand against injustice no matter where it occurs. — Ron Paul

That we should obey laws whether good or bad is a new-fangled notion. There was no such thing in former days. The people disregarded those laws they did not like and suffered the penalties for their breach. — Mahatma Gandhi

My links with [Mahatma] Gandhi now are very political links because I do not believe there is any other politics available to us in the late twentieth century, a period of a totalitarianism linked with the market. There is really no other way you can do politics and create freedom for people without the kinds of instruments he revived. Civil disobedience is a way to create permanent democracy, perennial democracy, a direct democracy. — Vandana Shiva

I call upon all of you to wage a second American nonviolent revolution, to use civil disobedience, and to demand that this president leave town, to get up, to put the Quran down, to get up off his knees, and to figuratively come out with his hands up, — Larry Klayman

If patriotism were defined, not as blind obedience to government, not as submissive worship to flags and anthems, but rather as love of one's country, one's fellow citizens (all over the world), as loyalty to the principles of justice and democracy, then patriotism would require us to disobey our government, when it violated those principles. — Howard Zinn

I don't advocate civil disobedience. I do advocate the role of an informed citizen to try to overturn when a court makes a mistake and gets an issue wrong. — Rick Santorum

Civil disobedience presupposes willing obedience of our self-imposed rules, and without it civil disobedience would be a cruel joke. — Mahatma Gandhi

Civil disobedience's main goal typically is to try to arouse and inspire others to join and do something. Well, sometimes that is a good tactic, sometimes not. — Noam Chomsky

Disobedience that is wholly civil should never provoke retaliation. — Mahatma Gandhi

Disobedience to rigid laws is a revolutionary act. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Why was there not massive civil disobedience against this anti-Christian discrimination, as there was against segregation? — Pat Buchanan

The problem in this world is not civil disobedience ... th e problem in this world is civil obedience. — Howard Zinn

Civil disobedience is a preparation for mute suffering. — Mahatma Gandhi

Civil disobedience is - it's no fun. — Noam Chomsky

Disobedience to be civil has to be open and nonviolent. — Mahatma Gandhi

I honestly do not know if civil disobedience has any effect on the government. I can promise you it has a great effect on the person who chooses to do it. — Martin Sheen

I think the big turning moment was when I joined the student political action club and started studying nonviolent civil disobedience in response to the Iraq War. The first anti-Bush protest in Atlanta was the first protest that I'd ever been to, and I helped organize the school walkout when I was a junior. It was a really solidifying moment. — Cecily McMillan

Clearly, here is a man who adheres to a widely held theory of attacking the branches of evil. 1. Speak from an ivory tower but rarely take a cutting tool in hand, unless when advising others. 2. Lecture at length, inspire others to unselfish acts of civil disobedience or quiet resistance, but rarely perform such acts yourself. 3. Become a widely-heralded critic of the state from within a respected state institution. — Douglas Herman

Non-co-operation and civil disobedience are but different branches of the same tree called satyagraha. — Mahatma Gandhi

Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders ... and millions have been killed because of this obedience ... Our problem is that people are obedient allover the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves ... (and) the grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem. — Howard Zinn

DESEGREGATE THE BUSES WITH THIS 7 POINT PROGRAM:

1. Pray for guidance.
2. Be courteous and friendly.
3. Be neat and clean.
4. Avoid loud talk.
5. Do not argue.
6. Report incidents immediately.
7. Overcome evil with good.
Sponsored by Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance
Rev. A. L. Davis, Pres.
Rev. J. E. Poindexter, Secretary — John Howard Griffin

Civil disobedience is a lever which can move the world by using peace as a fulcrum. — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Civil disobedience is the assertion of a right which law should give but which it denies. — Mahatma Gandhi

It was civil disobedience that won them their civil rights. — Tariq Ali

When EVIL men make bad laws, righteous men disobey them."
Pastor Butch Paugh — Tarrin P. Lupo

Mass civil disobedience is like an earthquake, a sort of general upheaval on the political plane. — Mahatma Gandhi

I think that what I was talking about was that as a woman growing up in a Mormon tradition in Salt Lake City, Utah, we were taught - and we are still led to believe - that the most important value is obedience. But that obedience in the name of religion or patriotism ultimately takes our souls. So I think it's this larger issue of what is acceptable and what is not; where do we maintain obedience and law and where do we engage in civil disobedience - where we can cross the line physically and metaphorically and say, "No, this is no longer appropriate behavior." — Terry Tempest Williams

Colorful demonstrations and weekend marches are vital but alone are not powerful enough to stop wars. Wars will be stopped only when soldiers refuse to fight, when workers refuse to load weapons onto ships and aircraft, when people boycott the economic outposts of Empire that are strung across the globe. — Arundhati Roy

Disobedience, to be civil, implies discipline, thought, care, attention. — Mahatma Gandhi

Civil disobedience is not something outside the realm of democracy. Democracy requires civil disobedience. Without civil disobedience democracy does not exist. — Howard Zinn

The Charkha, which is the embodiment of willing obedience and calm persistence, must therefore succeed before there is civil disobedience. — Mahatma Gandhi

Active nonviolence is necessary for those who will offer civil disobedience but the will and proper training are enough for the people to co-operate with those who are chosen for civil disobedience. — Mahatma Gandhi

Civil disobedience can only lead to strength and purity. — Mahatma Gandhi

One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Civil disobedience is not accepted by religion and the state does not accept it and there are many verses in the Holy Book that talk of following the ruler. — Pope Shenouda III

I didn't even know a heart could beat so loudly ... it reminds me of an Edgar Allen Poe story we had to read in one of our ... classes ... it's supposed to be a story about guilt and the dangers of civil disobedience, but when I first read it I thought it seemed kind of lame and melodramatic. Now I get it, though. Poe must have snuck out a lot when he was young. — Lauren Oliver

Each of us contributes our own piece to the whole, each in our own way, each in our own time with the gifts and talents that are ours. You ask about possible vehicles for change: question, stand, speak, act. Engage in unruly behavior. Disturb the status quo. Take direct action. Commit civil disobedience. Make art. Build community. Dance. Sing. Farm. Cook. Create something beautiful and then give it away. Find your own monkey wrench and use it with the force of love. Sharpen your pencil. Vote. — Terry Tempest Williams

Civil disobedience means capacity for unlimited suffering, without the intoxicating excitement of killing. — Mahatma Gandhi

Civil disobedience is the inherent right of a citizen. — Mahatma Gandhi

To engage in civil disobedience is to feel the abundance of courage, the gratitude for a democracy that still invites us to speak from our hearts, to act from our conscience and have faith in the consequences of moral action. Abundance is a form of consciousness. — Terry Tempest Williams

Civil disobedience and excitement and intoxication go ill together. — Mahatma Gandhi

Such expression is impossible in a cramped atmosphere. As I have no desire to offer civil disobedience I cannot write freely. As the author of satyagraha I cannot, consistently with my profession, suppress the vital part of myself for the sake of being able to write on permissible subjects ... It would be like dealing with the trunk without the head. — Mahatma Gandhi

If you're not going to use your free speech to criticize your own government, then what the hell is the point of having it? — Michel Templet

Rioting is not a movement. It is not an act of civil disobedience. I think it is a mistake for people to consider disorganized action, mayhem, and attacks on other people and property as an extension of any kind of movement. It is not. It is simply an explosion of emotion. That's all. There is nothing constructive about it. It is destructive. — John Lewis

But we need to search for and find, what we need to own and perfect into a magnificent, shining thing, is a new kind of politics. Not the politics of governments, but the politics of resistance. The politics of opposition. The politics of forcing accountability. The politics of slowing things down. In the present circumstances, I'd say the only thing worth globalizing is dissent. — Megan McKenna

There were three Selma-to-Montgomery marches in March 1965, and Rosa Parks had missed the first one. Parks, whose act of civil disobedience sparked the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, moved to Detroit two years later for safety reasons. — Douglas Brinkley

It is alarming ... to see Mr Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well-known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal Palace while he is still organising and conducting a campaign of civil disobedience. — Winston Churchill

Immunity is a public space. And it can be occupied by those who choose not to carry immunity. For some of the mothers I know, a refusal to vaccinate falls under a broader resistance to capitalism. But refusing immunity as a form of civil disobedience bears an unsettling resemblance to the very structure the Occupy movement seems to disrupt
a privileged 1 percent are sheltered from risk while they draw resources from the other 99 percent. — Eula Biss

All great rebellions are born of private acts of civil disobedience that inspire rebel bands to plot together. — Nancy Gibbs

True civil disobedience ... compels the state to resort to power. — Archibald Cox

I find this proposed amendment very, very, very, very shocking. And immoral. And, you know, if civil disobedience is the way to go about change, then I think a lot of people will be going to San Francisco. — Rosie O'Donnell

If they are truly nonviolent, they must also realize that civil disobedience is an impossibility till the preliminary work of construction is done. — Mahatma Gandhi

Civil disobedience has almost always been about expression. Generally, it's nonviolent, as defined by Henry David Thoreau, Gandhi, and King. — Marvin Ammori

My first civil disobedience arrest for social justice was in 1986 for protesting the SDI. — Martin Sheen

If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth
certainly the machine will wear out ... but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn. — Henry David Thoreau

Women have to risk civil disobedience for their rights. — Sonia Johnson

Little attention was paid, because the German people, no matter how hungry, remained obedient. — Barbara W. Tuchman

I don't believe in eye-for-an-eye. The most incredible, sustainable, beautiful movements have been non-violent movements of civil disobedience. — Ellen Page

It means that we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha. When there was no way left for constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods. But where constitutional methods are open, there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the Grammar of Anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us. — B.R. Ambedkar

Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state has become lawless or corrupt. And a citizen who barters with such a state shares in its corruption and lawlessness. — Mahatma Gandhi

The basis of Gandhi's nonviolence is to appeal to the good in others and evoke sympathy to one's cause through self-suffering. — Arun Gandhi

If any think that their influence would be lost there, and their voices no longer afflict the ear of the State, that they would not be as an enemy within its walls, they do not know how much truth is stronger than errors, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can combat injustice who has experienced a little in his own person. Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. — Henry David Thoreau

In 1999, I was in St. Louis with Martin Luther King III as we led protests against the state's failure to hire minority contractors for highway construction projects. We went at dawn on a summer day with over a thousand people and performed acts of civil disobedience. — Al Sharpton

The accession of not one but three illegal drug users in a row to the US presidency constitutes an existential challenge to the prohibitionist regime. The fact that some of the most successful people of our time, be it in business, finances, politics, entertainment or the arts, are current or former substance users is a fundamental refutation of its premises and a stinging rebuttal of its rationale. A criminal law that is broken at least once by 50% of the adult population and that is broken on a regular basis by 20% of the same adult population is a broken law, a fatally flawed law. How can a democratic government justify a law that is consistently broken by a substantial minority of the population? What we are witnessing here is a massive case of civil disobedience not seen since alcohol prohibition in the 1930 in the US. On what basis can a democratic system justify the stigmatization and discrimination of a strong minority of as much as 20% of its population? — Jeffrey Dhywood

Accepting yourself as you are is an act of civil disobedience. — Francesca Martinez

Mass civil disobedience can use rage as a constructive and creative force. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The question deserves to be asked: Is hating one's nation really such a bad thing? Or perhaps more importantly, after the crimes our government has committed, what moral self-respecting person can truly love this nation? — Michel Templet

I think direct political action, civil disobedience, in particular, is something to be taken very seriously. — Terry Tempest Williams

The act of civil disobedience is the act of taking our anger and turning it into sacred rage. It is a personal and collective gesture of resistance and insistance. — Terry Tempest Williams

Aggressive civil disobedience should be confined to a vindication of the right of free speech and free association. — Mahatma Gandhi

Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it. — Howard Zinn

It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, an Inner Temple lawyer, now become a seditious fakir of a type well known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Viceregal Palace, while he is still organizing and conducting a defiant campaign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor. [February 23, 1931] — Winston S. Churchill

Civil disobedience has an honourable history, and when the urgency and moral clarity cross a certain threshold, then I think that civil disobedience is quite understandable, and it has a role to play. — Al Gore

New concepts should be introduced by the power of imagery. — Douglas Coop

Ethnicity and tribe began, by definition, where sovereignty and taxes ended. The ethnic zone was feared and stigmatized by state rhetoric precisely because it was beyond its grasp and therefore an example of defiance and an ever-present temptation to those who might wish to evade the state. — James C. Scott

Each of us should choose which course of action we must take; education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes, but let it not be said that we did nothing. — Ron Paul

Mass civil disobedience was for the attainment of independence. — Mahatma Gandhi

I believe that Gandhi was correct. Non-violent civil disobedience is the only way to bring about change that allows people to enjoy the change and not get killed in the process. — Edward James Olmos

It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen. — Aristotle.

If there is no final place for civil disobedience, then the government has been made autonomous, and as such, it has been put in the place of the living God. — Francis A. Schaeffer

It is purposeless to tell Negroes they should not be enraged when they should be. Indeed, they will be mentally healthier if they do not suppress rage, but vent it constructively and use its energy peacefully but forcefully to cripple the operations of an oppressive society. Civil disobedience can utilize the militance wasted in riots to seize clothes or groceries many do not even want. — Martin Luther King Jr.

King consciously steered away from legal claims and instead relied on civil disobedience. — Constance Baker Motley

Gandhi said that only people with a high regard for the law were qualified for civil disobedience. — Mark Shepard

We demand justice," Jeff says. "we don't have it, the world is a mess because of assholes who think they can steal everything and get away with it. So we have to overwhelm them and get back to justice."
"And conditions are ripe, is that what you're saying?"
"Very ripe. People are pissed off. They're scared for their kids. That's the moment things can tip. If it works like Chenoweth's law says it does, then you only need about fifteen percent of a population to engage in civil disobedience, and the rest see it and support it, and the oligarchy falls. You get a new legal regime. It doesn't have to get all bloody and lead to a thugocracy of violent revolutionaries. If can work. And conditions are ripe. — Kim Stanley Robinson

In placing civil disobedience before constructive work I was wrong and I did not profit by the Himalayan blunder that I had committed. — Mahatma Gandhi

I am at a crossroads; I have always been against armed opposition ... I have chosen civil disobedience. But I will apologize to my people if there are funerals coming out of prisons. I will criticize myself and I won't be the mayor of Diyarbakir. — Osman Baydemir

I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. — Martin Luther King Jr.