Saul Alinsky Quotes

I think we brought to the world, the United States anyway, the whole idea of boycotting as a nonviolent tactic. I think we showed the world that nonviolence can work to make social change.

Civil disobedience has an honourable history, and when the urgency and moral clarity cross a certain threshold, then I think that civil disobedience is quite understandable, and it has a role to play.

Civil disobedience has almost always been about expression. Generally, it's nonviolent, as defined by Henry David Thoreau, Gandhi, and King.

I am one who believes in the power of the people. I am inspired when I see people hit the streets, who challenge their elected officials, and are willing to stand up and fight. I encourage it.

I think voting is the lowest form of political action that you can do. A lot of times, it keeps people from doing stronger things.

I think the reality is that there's a role for everybody to play in the work of social justice and that we have to organize everybody. That means that Silicon Valley has to be organized, the fashion industry has to be organized, the formerly incarcerated have to be organized, the teachers.

We came in as organizers before creating the Black Lives Matter network and project, and we are still organizers, strategists, political thinkers, and philosophers, so we actually have a lot ideas and a lot of really thought out strategies.

We on the Left are very good at criticizing people, but we need to build the base to pull people to the Left.

You will not be able to stay home, brother./You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out./You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,/Skip out for beer during commercials,/Because the revolution will not be televised.

Life in America is nothing but struggle, you gotta continue to try to overcome. Keep organizing, Obama said, keep organizing, grab a clipboard, get your signatures and start protesting, run for office yourself, but the shtruggle, the shtruggle is what defines us and we must continue with the shtruggle. Just pathetic, folks, the whole thing is pathetic.

This campaign of non-cooperation has no reference to diplomacy, secret or open. The only diplomacy it admits of is the statement and pursuance of truth at any cost.

When some people ask me about voting, they would say will you support this candidate or that candidate? I say: "I will support this candidate for one minute that I am in the voting booth. At that moment I will support A versus B, but before I am going to the voting booth, and after I leave the voting booth, I am going to concentrate on organizing people and not organizing electoral campaign."

It's soul force that removed the English from India. It's soul force that brought down the Berlin Wall. It's soul force that gave life to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s struggle for civil rights.

Civil disobedience and excitement and intoxication go ill together.

Time and time again we forget all too easily that nonviolent action embraces a wide and imaginative range of behavior which can always be stepped up.

My explanation remains the same: It was an attempt to make the point that anyone who opposed the war can achieve their objective by working within their sphere of influence, whether their political party or community of faith.

If Occupy Wall Street can see their way to more collaboration with the union movement, then there will be a great deal of political action possible.

My early years as a political activist were dominated by the poll tax.

I believe boycotts are wrong.

I've been saying the Occupy Movement has got the ball rolling, and now we need to take the fight to the great indoors!

I've never been involved in any kind of political movement.

Traditionalists will have to master techniques of sustained activism formerly monopolized by the left.

You can't do progressive government from the inside. You have to rally those outsiders and make them a force.

Activists are generally doers - rather than watching television and thinking about the world they will put there energies into doing something 'active' to change the (political) situation.

I feel very happy to be living in Berkeley because there are a lot of people who are politically active here.