Saul Alinsky Quotes

Social change rarely comes about through the efforts of the disenfranchised. The middle class creates social revolutions.

Middle-class-led reform movements, from the Progressive Era to the War on Poverty, have been marred by an elitist distance from the would-be beneficiaries of reform.

To renounce the conquest of power is voluntarily to leave the power with those who wield it, the exploiters. The essence of every revolution consisted and consists in putting a new class in power, thus enabling it to realize its own program in life. It is impossible to wage war and to reject victory.

Every class struggle is a political struggle

Agitators are a set of interfering meddling people, who come down to some perfectly contented class of the community and sow the seeds of discontent amongst them. That is the reason why agitators are so absolutely necessary.

The revolution... is a dictatorship of the exploited against the exploiters.

To you, workers of Ireland, we address ourselves. AGITATE in the workshop, in the field, in the factory, until you arouse your brothers to hatred of the slavery of which we are all the victims. EDUCATE, that the people may no longer be deluded by illusory hopes of prosperity under any system of society of which monarchs or noblemen, capitalists or landlords form an integral part. ORGANIZE, that a solid, compact and intelligent force, conscious of your historic mission as a class, you may seize the reins of political power whenever possible and, by intelligent application of the working-class ballot, clear the field of action for the revolutionary forces of the future.

A revolution [is] not a single act, but rather a chain of collisions and conflicts with the ruling class, which is never ready to submit itself to the will of a democratic majority, but rather defends its predominant position with all means at its disposal, with the help of the powers which the state has built up—the army, the police, the courts and the church

Revolutions break out when opposite parties, the rich and the poor, are equally balanced, and there is little or nothing between them.

Reformers and progressives are inevitably iconoclasts.

All past history with the exception of the primitive stages was the history of class struggles.

It is a wrong form of government we are living under, and we, the workers stand for the overthrow of the whole damnable institution.

History is made in the class struggle and not in bed.

All great revolutions are led by aristocrats.

One class did not overthrow another; the poor did not supplant the rich. But social relationships—the way people were connected one to another—were changed and decisively so.

If the result of so many sacrifices was that the capitalists remain in control, what was the point of the revolution?

The absolutists of contract are the real parents of revolution.

Not a single problem of the class struggle has ever been solved in history except by violence.

The first liberating revolutions never destroyed the large landholding powers that always constituted a reactionary force and upheld the principle of servitude on the land.

Revolution by the have-nots has a way of inducing a moral revelation among the haves.

'The Prince' was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. 'Rules for Radicals' is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.

Our Revolution has been the keeper of the flame doing the vital work of building a grassroots movement that leverages the people's agenda.

I am not a politician. I am just a simple person who has come to break down this system.

No reform ever came from the bottom, and it was always people who understood how the ruling class worked who turned out to be the reformers.

The only countervailing force against organized money at the top, is organized people at the bottom.