Saul Alinsky Quotes

When two opposing sides meet in battle, the one without an enemy will be victorious.

The fourth rule is: "Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules." You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.

To surprise the enemy is to defeat him.

The point of nonviolence is to build a floor, a strong new floor, beneath which we can no longer sink. A platform which stands a few feet above napalm, torture, exploitation, poison gas, A and H bombs, the works. Give man a decent place to stand.

The experience of a lot of us women is that too much money is being spent on militarism and war. We need human security: food, education, health care for our children. We don't want to waste it on wars and militarism. That will be our focus: building a culture that moves away from militarism.

I will not call myself a pacifist for the very simple reason that if something like a [Francisco] Franco should arise in Spain again, or, for that matter, in America, and tried to take away whatever dwindling civil liberties and human rights we retain, I would resist them with a club if I had to. But my admiration for pacifism as an outlook and a sensibility is enormous. I just find that it gets me into contradictions, as it often gets many pacifists into contradictory positions and strategies.

It is better to learn war early from friends, than late from enemies.

The only good enemy is a dead enemy.

My mission is to convert every Indian, every Englishman and finally the world to nonviolence for regulating mutual relations, whether political, economic, social or religious.

On my knees, I beg of you to turn away from the paths of violence and to return to the path of peace. Those who resort to violence always claim that only violence brings about change. You must know there is a political, peaceful way to justice.

Subjugating the enemy's army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence.

The book Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story, I read it when I was about 17-and-a-half or 18. It changed my life.

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and direct action.

There is a tendency in any conflict, especially in a democracy, to fight the enemy you can, not the enemy you should.

The Jesus I follow is the peacemaker, is one who says forgive your enemies, who worries about the poor, who worries about the poorest of the poor instead of the richest of the rich.

Why do men carry guns and build prison camps, when the nurturing earth is made for freedom?

His [Martin Luther King] last book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community, is a direct reference to angles, barbarism or socialism.

You are no Satyagrahi if you remain silent or passive spectators while your enemy is being done to death.

If Martin [Luther King, Jr.]'s philosophy had been embraced and lived out in Iraq and other places, we wouldn't have bin Ladens.

Satyagraha is a relentless search for truth and a determination to search truth.

In taking revenge upon our enemies, we are only even with them; in passing over their malice we are superior.

By merely foreswearing violence and taking advantage of their unique position contiguous with the world’s most creative people, the Palestinians could be rich and happy.

No form of violence can ever be excused in a society that wishes to call itself decent

My implicit faith in nonviolence does mean yielding to minorities when they are really weak.

Wartime CEO is too busy fighting the enemy to read management books written by consultants who have never managed a fruit stand.