Nelson Mandela Quotes

History dictates that unresponsive governments force ordinary people to do extraordinary things.

Violence is the only language understood by Mr. Lloyd George and his ministers.

A revolution is an act of violence whereby one class shatters the authority of another.

The last resort of kings, the cannonball. The last resort of the people, the paving stone.

Fight the power that be. Fight the power.

a government which goes counter to the will of the nation must be overthrown at once... It is dangerous to drive the people to despair and force them to demand by violence that which they as yet seek only by constitutional means.

If officials are too forceful, people will revolt.

The people in power will not disappear voluntarily, giving flowers to the cops just isn't going to work. This thinking is fostered by the establishment; they like nothing better than love and nonviolence.

Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny, yet is itself pregnant with tyranny

I never wanted the government to feel my pain. I wanted it to feel my boot in its butt.

The tree of liberty could not grow were it not watered with the blood of tyrants

It is authority that provokes revolution....

Revolution against imperialism is not an action of inviting guests to have meal, writing articles, braiding, education, softness or fear of enemy. But it is a class wrath seized to topple another class

Old forms of government finally grow so oppressive, that they must be thrown off even at the risk of reigns of terror.

So if you are the big tree, we are the small axe. Ready to cut you down, to cut you down.

I can see that in certain political situations you have to use force to overthrow police states.

True revolution comes from true revulsion; when things get bad enough the kitten will kill the lion.

In the relations of a weak Government and a rebellious people there comes a time when every act of the authorities exasperates the masses, and every refusal to act excites their contempt.

Power is never so overwhelming that there's no room for resistance.

Our war cries opened the deaf ears of the almighty government and its accomplices.

The walls, the bars, the guns and the guards can never encircle or hold down the idea of the people.

People have a right to violence, to rebel, to fight back.

Who Rebels? Who rises in arms? Rarely the slave, but almost always the oppressor turned slave.

Men seldom, or rather never for a length of time and deliberately, rebel against anything that does not deserve rebelling against.

The white man made the mistake of letting me read his history books. He made the mistake of teaching me that Patrick Henry was a patriot and George Washington - wasn't nothing non-violent about old Pat or George Washington.