Noam Chomsky Quotes

I believe strongly that Occupy Wall Street had such limits because the local authorities were able to enforce, basically in our imaginations, an image of what proper civil disobedience is - one that is simply ineffective.

Civil disobedience's main goal typically is to try to arouse and inspire others to join and do something. Well, sometimes that is a good tactic, sometimes not.

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.

It's really important that we get rid of the idea that protest will create change. We don't realize that that kind of organizing worked only when the government was very strong, when the West ruled the world, relatively speaking.

If civil disobedience is the way to go about change, than I think a lot of people will be going to San Francisco

This is a movement. This is not Trump. This is not anything. This is a movement. Remember, it is a movement. We used to say silent majority. It's not a silent majority, it's really a noisy majority.

I organized tax resistance in 1965, with a friend. I kept at it for about ten years. I don't see it as a principle, it's a tactic. And I felt I had exhausted its potential as a tactic right about then, so I stopped.

I think direct political action, civil disobedience, in particular, is something to be taken very seriously.

Occupy Wall Street is a real movement.

The only good political movement I've seen lately was Occupy Wall Street. They had no leaders, which was genius. But unfortunately it always ends up with some hippy playing a flute.

Occupy is anything but a protest movement. That's why it has been so hard for news agencies to express or even discern the 'demands' of the growing legions of Occupy participants around the nation, and even the world.

I'm an anarchist and I do think things such as Occupy Wall Street are about getting a little closer to the solution.

The power of protest depends not only on how many turn out, but also on what legislative, judicial, and civil society institutions exist to enact the will of those marching in the streets.

Passive resistance and boycotting are now prominent features of every great national movement.

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.

Whatever will happen has to be based on long-term policies and strategies of resistance. We had the Occupy Wall Street movement, but when they had to step up and organize in a more institutional way, the whole movement dissolved.

Rallies, marches on Washington, protests, et al. are pointless if there is no action to make them mean something.

Protest is, at its core, designed to move policy.

Sometimes things need to get really bad before they can ever get better. Really bad can become untenable if enough people get sick of it. That was a big thing about why I ended up taking part in that rally [against police brutality] and ended up voicing my opinion and declaring what side I was standing on.

I think that if the political and social movement groups and organizations that operate in this country today had the same kind of energetic commitment that the medical marijuana people have, many things could change in this country.

We must stop being polite and behaved and find new inventive tactics to shift the paradigm. We are the majority.

I think that any time you look at the fact that boycotts have historically led to change, whatever temporary inconvenience there may be, it in the long run leads toward, in my opinion, a better change for everybody.

I can never feel that setting fire to houses and churches and litter boxes and destroying valuable pictures really helps to convince people that women ought to be enfranchised.

If the government or the parties won't address our needs, we will. It's about direct action, even civil disobedience.