51 Quotes About Civil-disobedience

New concepts should be introduced by the power of imagery.

You don't manage an oppressor or dictator. You don't love people out of being controlling or abusive. You come up with a plan to secure whatever is most important to you before they kill you.

A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority.

No doubt you’ve heard the phrase 'ignorance of the law is no excuse’, and are probably familiar with the statist meaning of that phrase: Being ignorant of a law is no excuse for breaking it. However 'ignorance of the law is no excuse' also has a less-well-known libertarian meaning: This is an ignorant law and there’s no excuse for it!

An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so. Now the law of nonviolence says that violence should be resisted not by counter-violence but by nonviolence. This I do by breaking the law and by peacefully submitting to arrest and imprisonment.

Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them? Or shall we endeavor to amend them and obey them until we have succeeded? Or shall we transgress them at once? — 1849 Essay on Civil Disobedience.

An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.

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?

It was civil disobedience that won them their civil rights.