Richard Henry Tawney Quotes

My goal for the Arab world is to change the status quo, which is horrible politically, religiously, economically, in every way.

I wish to suggest that ample opportunity does exist for dissent, for protest, and for nonconformity. But I must also say that the right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.

Dissent is what rescues democracy from a quiet death behind closed doors.

So, I think China desperately needs to legitimize some form of opposition.

We believe that this is not right for a democracy to make revolutions the beacon of promoting democracy.

How many of you are willing to go to jail for freedom?

Civil disobedients are nothing but the latest form of voluntary association, and that they are thus quite in tune with the oldest traditions of the country.

Democracy is the least static form of society. Its basis is reason not authority.

Real freedom will require many changes in the nation’s political and social philosophies and institutions.

I favor anti-politics politics.

Protests are part of our democracy.

I was anti-conformist.

Protest is political. It is as political as what our conception of America is.

A little rebellion now and then... is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.

The history in our country speaks to our highest values of people who did not accept things as they are and go along with them. They resisted, they refused to accept the world as it is, they demanded it to be a better reflection of their highest dreams and highest aspirations.

All art is based on nonconformity ... Without nonconformity we would have had no Bill of Rights or Magna Carta, no public education system, no nation upon this continent, no continent, no science at all, no philosophy, and considerably fewer religions.

...dissent, protest, presures of a wide variety that escape elite control can modify the calculus of costs of planners, and offer a slight hope that Washington can be compelled to permit at least some steps towards "justice, freedom and democracy" within its domains.

Civil disobedience is not something outside the realm of democracy. Democracy requires civil disobedience. Without civil disobedience democracy does not exist.

One of the great things about our democracy is it expresses itself in all sorts of ways. And that includes people protesting. I've been the subject of protests during the course of my eight years and I suspect that there's not a president in our history that at some point hasn't been subject to these protests.

I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

Democracy is reproached with saying that the majority is always right. But progress says that the minority is always right.

Let us simmer over our incalculable cauldron, our enthralling confusion, our hotchpotch of impulses, our perpetual miracle - for the soul throws up wonders every second. Movement and change are the essence of our being; rigidity is death; conformity is death; let us say what comes into our heads, repeat ourselves, contradict ourselves, fling out the wildest nonsense, and follow the most fantastic fancies without caring what the world does or thinks or says. For nothing matters except life.

Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it. It is a corrective to the sluggishness of "the proper channels," a way of breaking through passages blocked by tradition and prejudice. It is disruptive and troublesome, but it is a necessary disruption, a healthy troublesome.

I like to think I have the guts to stand up anonymously in a western democracy and call for things no-one else believes in - like peace and justice and freedom.