Henry David Thoreau Quotes

There are two ways of resisting war: the legal way and the revolutionary way. The legal way involves the offer of alternatinve service not as a privilege for a few but as a right for all. The revolutionary view involves an uncompromising resistance, with a view to breaking the power of militarism in time of peace or the resources of the state in time of war.

What if when they called a war, no one went?

Non-co-operation means nothing less than training in self-sacrifice.

I cannot teach you violence, as I do not myself believe in it. I can only teach you not to bow your heads before any one even at the cost of your life.

Complete civil disobedience is a state of peaceful rebellion, a refusal to obey every single state-made law.

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

Passive resistance is the resistance which does not resist.

Non-co-operation in an angry atmosphere is an impossibility.

The primary object of non-co-operation is nowhere stated to be paralysis of the Government. The primary object is self-purification.

It is claimed for satyagraha that it is a complete substitute for violence or war.

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

Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight.... If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible.

No confirmed satyagrahi is dismayed by dangers, seen or unseen, from his opponent's side.

A satyagrahi has always his minimum and it is this minimum that is wanted in connection with this struggle.

Passive resistance is a sport for gentleman (and ladies)-just like the pursuit of war, a heroic enterprise for the ruling classes but a grievous burden on the rest.

I quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, though I will still make use and get advantage of her as I can, as is usual in such cases.

In the code of the satyagrahi, there is no such thing as surrender to brute force.

Nonviolence or soul force does not need physical aids for its propagation of effect.

Civil disobedience is a preparation for mute suffering.

Non-co-operation is a movement intended to invite Englishmen to co-operate with us on honourable terms or retire from our land.

Even if only 2 percent of those assigned to perform military service should announce their refusal to fight, governments would be powerless, they would not dare send such a large number of people to jail.

Non-co-operation is protest against an unwitting and unwilling participation in evil.

If every soldier refused to take arms ... there would be no wars; but no one has the courage to be the first to live according to Christ and Socrates, because in a world of opportunists they would be martyred.

Before civil disobedience can be practised on a vast scale, people must learn the art of civil or voluntary obedience.

Not those who shout 'satyagraha', 'satyagraha' will do satyagraha, but those who will work for it.