Robert M. La Follette Quotes

A man who knows a thing, who is aware of a given danger, and sees the possibility of a remedy with his own eyes, has the duty and obligation, by God, not to work 'silently,' but to stand up before the whole public against the evil and for its cure.

I never make a distinction between private life and politics - that's a petit bourgeois thing. How can you make a stand against Nazi Germany, or in Rwanda, when you live life by making that distinction?

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

When you see corruption, when you see injustice, you speak up. You don't just shut up and say it's none of my business.

You have to have people who prick the consciences of the nation.

I think of Martin Luther King phrase a lot when I'm deciding public issues. He said: "Here I stand: I can do no other." It is basically an affirmation of my ultimate responsibility to obey my conscience in my acts as a public official.

It is important to keep protesting, to keep forcing a conversation in the public arena. In any case, when you know what the right thing to do is, or that something must be said, it can be immoral and dangerous not to act.

To engage in civil disobedience is to feel the abundance of courage, the gratitude for a democracy that still invites us to speak from our hearts, to act from our conscience and have faith in the consequences of moral action. Abundance is a form of consciousness.

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

When struck on one cheek to turn the other, is really joining a conspiracy to secure the triumph of brutality. To agree not to resist evil is to become an accomplice of all injustice.

Help and you will abolish apathy-the void that is so quickly filled by ignorance and evil.

We are involved in an intense battle. It is a battle between right and wrong, between truth and error, between the design of the Almighty on the one hand and that of Lucifer on the other. For that reason, we desperately need moral men and women who stand on principle, to be involved in the political process. Otherwise, we abdicate power to those whose designs are almost entirely selfish.

The best state is that in which bad men are not allowed to hold office, and good men are not allowed to refuse office.

He was a humanist then, he's a humanist now, and to my mind John Carlos is an authentic American hero.

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.

Perhaps the worst sin in life is knowing right and not doing it.

We must not believe the Evil One when he tells us that there is nothing we can do in the face of violence, injustice and sin.

A man who really fights for justice must lead a private, not a public, life if he is to survive for even a short time.

Over and over again, people had to disobey lawful authority to follow the voice of their conscience. This obedience to God and disobedience to the State has, over and over again, happened throughout history. It is time again to cry out against our 'leaders,' to question (since it is not for us to say that they are evil) whether or not they are sane.

The survival of democracy depends on the renunciation of violence and the development of nonviolent means to combat evil and advance the good.

I was always a politician from the day the civil rights people chose me as their protest singer.

When evil men plot, good men must plan. When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind. When evil men shout ugly words of hatred, good men must commit themselves to the glories of love.

A good person will resist an evil system with his whole soul. Disobedience of the laws of an evil state is therefore a duty.

Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders . . . . and millions have been killed because of this obedience . . . .

Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence and thereby eventually lose all ability to defend ourselves and those we love.