Quotes & Sayings About Nonviolent Resistance

My study of Gandhi convinced me that true pacifism is not nonresistance to evil, but nonviolent resistance to evil. Between the two positions, there is a world of difference. Gandhi resisted evil with as much vigor and power as the violent resister, but True pacifism is not unrealistic submission to evil power. It is rather a courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love ... — Martin Luther King Jr.

In the 1960s Martin Luther King Jr. devised a creative strategy of engagement that has since been adapted to many causes. He fused together the power of love as described in the Sermon on the Mount and Mahatma Gandhi's method of nonviolent resistance. "Prior to reading Gandhi," he said, "I had about concluded that the ethics of Jesus were only effective in individual relationships." Gandhi showed him that a movement on behalf of a moral cause could be expressed in a loving way. "I came to feel that this was the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom. — Philip Yancey

The power of nonviolent resistance can only come from honest working of the constructive programme. — Mahatma Gandhi

The United States was seriously defeated in Iraq by Iraqi nationalism - mostly by nonviolent resistance. The United States could kill the insurgents, but they couldn't deal with half a million people demonstrating in the streets. — Noam Chomsky

A truly nonviolent man would never live to tell the tale of atrocities. He would have laid down his life on the spot in non-violent resistance. — Mahatma Gandhi

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

Freedom is never given to anybody, for the oppressor has you in domination because he plans to keep you there." And he went beyond Douglass to espouse a doctrine of passive, non-violent resistance. "Hate begets hate, violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness," King said. "Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win his friendship and understanding. ... This is a nonviolent protest. We are depending on moral and spiritual forces. — Robert A. Caro

History has no record of a nation having adopted nonviolent resistance. — Mahatma Gandhi

Their exhibits include movements of social transformation and resistance to war and to structural and other violence; individuals working for peace and social justice; legal and international initiatives for disarmament, cooperation, and prevention; handiwork and artistic representations; and nonviolent alternatives and peaceful visions. Such museums often include peace stories and artifacts such as banners used in protests, conscientious objectors' diaries, and reconciliation ceremonies between former enemies. Such peace museums/centers write in histories about war and peace that may be denied, minimized, or distorted by official accounts and in public memory. There — Joyce Apsel

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.

Through nonviolent resistance the Negro will be able to rise to the noble height of opposing the unjust system while loving the perpetrators of the system. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The argument that resistance to the war should remain strictly nonviolent seems to me overwhelming. — Noam Chomsky

By nonviolent resistance, the Negro can also enlist all men of good will in his struggle for equality. — Martin Luther King Jr.

[I]t must be emphasized that nonviolent resistance is not a method for cowards; it does resist. If one uses this method because he is afraid or merely because he lacks the instruments of violence, he is not truly nonviolent. This is why Gandhi often said that if cowardice is the only alternative to violence, it is better to fight. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Much as being active in the antislavery movement of the last century involved more than not engaging in slavery oneself, so joining in an antiviolence movement has to go beyond opting for nonviolence in one's personal life. It calls for engaging in imaginative and forceful practices of nonviolent resistance to violence, including taking a stand toward entertainment violence. — Sissela Bok

In effect, terrorists now have the power to ignite war. They almost have their finger on the nuclear button. They almost have the status of heads of state. And that has enhanced the effectiveness and romance of terrorism.
The US government's response to September 11 has actually privileged terrorism. It has given it a huge impetus, and made it look like terrorism is the only effective way to be heard. Over the years, every kind of nonviolent resistance movement has been crushed, ignored, kicked aside. But if you're a terrorist, you have a great chance of being negotiated with, of being on TV, of getting all the attention you couldn't have dreamt of earlier. — Arundhati Roy

Nonviolence and nonaggression are generally regarded as interchangeable concepts - King and Gandhi frequently used them that way - but nonviolence, as employed by Gandhi in India and by King in the American South, might reasonably be viewed as a highly disciplined form of aggression. If one defines aggression in the primary dictionary sense of "attack," nonviolent resistance proved to be the most powerful attack imaginable on the powers King and Gandhi were trying to overturn. The writings of both men are filled with references to love as a powerful force against oppression, and while the two leaders were not using the term" force" in the military sense, they certainly regarded nonviolence as a tactical weapon as well as an expression of high moral principle." Susan Jacoby (p. 196) — Helen Prejean

Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, commonly referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian novelist, writer, essayist, philosopher, Christian anarchist, pacifist, educational reformer, moral thinker, and an influential member of the Tolstoy family. As a fiction writer Tolstoy is widely regarded as one of the greatest of all novelists, particularly noted for his masterpieces War and Peace and Anna Karenina; in their scope, breadth and realistic depiction of Russian life, the two books stand at the peak of realistic fiction. As a moral philosopher he was notable for his ideas on nonviolent resistance through his work The Kingdom of God is Within You, which in turn influenced such twentieth-century figures as Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Source: Wikipedia — Leo Tolstoy

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

Jesus called for nonviolent resistance to Rome and just distribution of land and food. He was crucified because he threatened Roman stability - not as a sacrifice to God for humanity's sins — John Dominic Crossan

Each of the various tactics that have been tried to get Israel to budge.. nonviolent resistance, legal accountability, BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions).. has had some measure of success. — Norman Finkelstein

I firmly believe that the Gandhian philosophy of nonviolent resistance is the only logical and moral approach to the solution of the race problem in the United States. — Martin Luther King Jr.

It seems to me that this is the method that must guide the actions of the Negro in the present crisis in race relations. Through nonviolent resistance the Negro will be able to rise to the noble height of opposing the unjust system while loving the perpetrators of the system. The Negro must work passionately and unrelentingly for full stature as a citizen, but he must not use inferior methods to gain it. He must never come to terms with falsehood, malice, hate, or destruction. — Martin Luther King Jr.