John Ruskin Quotes

Every government on earth is the personification of violence and force, and yet the doctine of non-resistance is as old as human thought - even more than this, the instinct is as old as life upon the earth.

A boycott is the most peaceful and passive kind of protest there is and can be. We do not say we hate you or even say that you are wrong. We just say that we don’t want to ride your bus.

Change comes when people are willing to commit acts of peaceful civil disobedience.

Nonviolence is the rock on which the whole structure of non-co-operation is built.

I and some colleagues came to the conclusion that as violence in this country was inevitable, it would be wrong and unrealistic for African leaders to continue preaching peace and non-violence at a time when the government met our peaceful demands with force. It was only when all else had failed, when all channels of peaceful protest had been barred to us, that the decision was made to embark on violent forms of political struggle.

Turning the other cheek isn't submissive. It's defiant.

The establishment will irritate you - pull your beard, flick your face - to make you fight. Because once they've got you violent, then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don't know how to handle is non-violence and humor.

Strike, if you will, but listen.

The use of violence is justified only under a tyranny which makes reforms without violence impossible, and should have only one aim, that is, to bring about a state of affairs which makes reforms without violence possible.

Those whose conscience demands that they defy authority in some ways that involve great consequences must be willing to accept some penalty.

No police officer could compel a satyagrahi to give evidence against a person who has confessed to him. A satyagrahi would never be guilty of a betrayal of trust.

Non-violence is very weak in the theoretical sense; it cannot defend itself. But it is most powerful in the action situation where people are using non-violence because they want desperately to bring about some change. Non-violence in action is a very potent force and it can't be stopped. The people who are struggling have the complete say-so. No man-made law, no human ruler, no army can destroy this. There is no way it can be destroyed... And so, if we have the capacity to endure, if we have the patience, things will change.

I will never be by violence constrained to do anything.

If the civil authorities refuse to protect me, I must look to God, and if I die, I have determined to make my grave in Alton.

“Order prevails in Berlin!” You foolish lackeys! Your “order” is built on sand. Tomorrow the revolution will “rise up again, clashing its weapons,” and to your horror it will proclaim with trumpets blazing: I was, I am, I shall be!

The oppressed will make surer and faster progress if they eschew violence and depend, as they do mainly depend in their organizing and strike activities, on their solidarity, courage, capacity for suffering and sacrifice, and on non-cooperation where injustice becomes extreme

Non-violence implies voluntary submission to the penalty for non-cooperation with evil.

I shall order the men to disregard your order, to stand fast. I shall then walk to the largest window in the plant, open it, divest myself of my outer reinments, remove my shirt and bare my bosom. Then when you order your troops to fire, mine will be the first breast those bullets will strike!

We cannot have a situation where people decide to sit in places not allowed and when police remove them they say no. We can’t have that. That is a revolt to the system. Some are crying that they were beaten. Yes you will be thoroughly beaten. When the police say move, you move. If you don’t move, you invite the police to use force.

Passive resistance is the resistance which does not resist.

I hold it blasphemy to say that a man ought not to fight against authority: there is no great religion and no great freedom that has not done it.

We are not afraid of their guns. Honduras army pattern is just 7000 men. If we take up arms, we would quickly run away so few soldiers. But our goal is to allocate the regime in a peaceful and honorable way. Women, children, youth, students, workers -- we all have united in a civic front against the coup. Even my 80 year old mother went to the streets and practiced non-violent resistance.

I remember back in the 1960s - late '50s, really - reading a comic book called 'Martin Luther King Jr. and the Montgomery Story.' Fourteen pages. It sold for 10 cents. And this little book inspired me to attend non-violence workshops, to study about Gandhi, about Thoreau, to study Martin Luther King, Jr., to study civil disobedience.

Those who excel in virtue have the best right of all to rebel, but then they are of all men the least inclined to do so.

There is a need for a movement of non-violent direct action.