#Protest Quotes

“With these shreds They vented their complainings, which being answered And a petition granted them, a strange one, To break the heart of generosity, And make bold power look pale, they threw their caps As they would hang them on the horns o' th' moon, Shouting their emulation.”

“It is a protest against the way the world has worked. (explanation of Bolshevism)”

“Say did you read in the papers about a bunch of Women up in British Columbia as a protest against high taxes, sit out in the open naked, and they wouldent put their clothes on? The authorities finally turned a Sprayer that you use on trees, on 'em. That may lead into quite a thing. Woman comes into the tax office nude, saying I won't pay. Well they can't search her and get anything. It sounds great. How far is it to British Columbia?”

“Do you hear the people sing? Singing a song of angry men”

“Not being heard is no reason for silence.”

“I write with one hand, but I fight with both.”

“They claim that I'm violent just cuz I refuse to be silent.”

“The only thing America respects is power and power concedes nothing. After the LA Riots, they tried to calm us down and nothing changed since.”

“The signs of the Vietnam War protestors said "Make Love not War!" It didn't seem to me that they were capable of either.”

“Non-co-operation is the quickest method of creating public opinion.”

“Disobedience that is wholly civil should never provoke retaliation.”

“If you must kill English officials, why not kill me instead?”

“Civil disobedience is a preparation for mute suffering.”

“Art is a finger up the bourgeoisie ass.”

“Painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war.”

“Painting is not made to decorate apartments. It's an offensive and defensive weapon against the enemy. (about Guernica).”

“No, painting is not interior decoration. It is an instrument of war for attack and defense against the enemy.”

“Painting isn't made for the decoration of apartments; it is a weapon to be used offensively and defensively against the enemy.”

“Art isn't done to decorate apartments, but to wage war against the enemy.”

“For me popular violence is as much an obstruction in our path as the Government violence.”

“Mass civil disobedience is like an earthquake, a sort of general upheaval on the political plane.”

“To prevent the workers from going to their work by standing in front of them is pure violence and must be given up.”

“Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest.”

“The purpose of direct action is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.”

“To dislocate the functioning of a city without destroying it can be more effective than a riot because it can be longer-lasting, costly to the society but not wantonly destructive, moreover, it is more difficult for Government to quell it by superior force.”

“The only weapon that we have in our hands this evening is the weapon of protest. That's all.”

“Ordinarily, a person leaving a courtroom with a conviction behind him would wear a somber face. But I left with a smile. I knew that I was a convicted criminal, but I was proud of my crime.”

“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?”

“We black people, as a whole, are at war we'll say with the white power structure. Not physically, but we have definite protests to win the battle.”

“It is the worst thing you can do, women, is whine, .. I mean the worst. Don't complain, protest.”

“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.”

“When you cut facilities, slash jobs, abuse power, discriminate, drive people into deeper poverty & shoot people dead whilst refusing to provide answers or justice, the people will rise up & express their anger & frustration if you refuse to hear their cries. A riot is the language of the unheard.”

“Lighting that torch in Atlanta didn't make me nervous. Standing up to the government - that made me nervous.”

“The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality.… If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.”

“We have no alternative but to protest. For many years we have shown an amazing patience... But we come here tonight to be saved from that patience that makes us patient with anything less than freedom and justice.”

“I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.”

“I strongly object to the fact that so many newspapers have given the American public and the world the impression that I have only two alternatives in taking this stand: either I go to jail or go to the Army. There is another alternative and that alternative is justice. If justice prevails, if my Constitutional rights are upheld, I will be forced to go neither to the Army nor jail. In the end I am confident that justice will come my way for the truth must eventually prevail.”

“We aren't engaged in any negative protest and in any negative arguments with anybody. We are saying that we are determined to be men. We are determined to be people. We are saying that we are God's children. And that we don't have to live like we are forced to live.”

“In 1848, Thoreau went to jail for refusing, as a protest against the Mexican war, to pay his poll tax. When RW Emerson came to bail him out, Emerson said, 'Henry, what are you doing in there?' Thoreau quietly replied, 'Ralph, what are you doing out there?'”

“When they remain silent, they cry out.”

“If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, Maybe I could understand some of these illegal injunctions. ... But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of the press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right.”

“We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence.”

“When large numbers of wholly innocent men are in jail, we may take it that Swaraj is at hand.”

“I learned early that crying out in protest could accomplish things. My older brothers and sister had started to school when, sometimes, they would come in and ask for a buttered biscuit or something and my mother, impatiently, would tell them no. But I would cry out and make a fuss until I got what I wanted. I remember well how my mother asked me why I couldn't be a nice boy like Wilfred; but I would think to myself that Wilfred, for being so nice and quiet, often stayed hungry. So early in life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.”

“In this country, these Negro leaders have Negroes sittin' - sitting down, thinking that that - there's dignity towards sitting in.”

“Aggressive civil disobedience should be confined to a vindication of the right of free speech and free association.”

“If an injustice 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 government machine.”

“I say, break the law.”

“I swear to the Lord, I still can't see, why Democracy means, everybody but me.”

“There is no color line in death. I swear to the lord I still can't see Why Democracy means Everybody but me. O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath - America will be! I am the American heartbreak- The rock on which Freedom Stumped its toe.”