Herbert Read Quotes

I invite even the school of violence to give this peaceful non-co-operation a trial.

In a world built on violence, one must be a revolutionary before one can be a pacifist.

Civil disobedience is a viable political tactic, and a non-violent tactic.

There is a need for a movement of non-violent direct action.

Civil disobedience is the only nonviolent escape from the soul-destroying heat of violence.

I don't accept armed struggle. Maybe it was the way in the '50s and '60s, but we want a democratic revolution.

I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there's nothing weak - nothing passive - nothing naïve - in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.

People have a right to violence, to rebel, to fight back.

You can't change the system through violence.

Direct action means resort to non-constitutional methods that can take any form which many suit the conditions under which we live. We cannot eliminate any methods.

In order for non-violence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none.

Non-co-operation means nothing less than training in self-sacrifice.

I feel that non-violence is really the only way that we can follow because violence is just so self-defeating. A riot ends up creating many more problems for the negro community than it solved. We can through violence burn down a building, but you can't establish justice. You can murder a murderer, but you can't murder murder through violence. You can murder a hater, but you can't murder hate. And what we're trying to get rid of is hate, injustice, and all of these other things that continue the long night of man's inhumanity to man.

Mass civil disobedience can use rage as a constructive and creative force.

Non-violence has suffered its biggest defeat in the hands of people who most want to talk about it.

Protest is when I say I don't like this. Resistance is when I put an end to what I don't like. Protest is when I say I refuse to go along with this anymore. Resistance is when I make sure everybody else stops going along too.

I came to carry out the struggle, not to kill people.

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

Resisting the powers that be, we are keeping things from getting worse than they otherwise might be. And that effort is very much worthwhile.

We must transfer our anger to the brutalities of our time.

I do not like violence, but ours is a violent time, and there are some men who understand nothing else.

Resisting is worth doing.

That force - which the system tried to laugh at - when it finally broke through and the movement was recognized, the media said they were "just a bunch of spoiled kids, dope smokers [who] don't know what the hell they want." To demean it as something laughable - but that didn't work for very long. It's still an ongoing struggle; they're trying to find out how to fight. It's very exciting times.

I think, you're not blagging me on this ridiculous journey, with this bit of paper. I think if you want to change things, it's not with an X on a piece of paper, it's with an X on someone's forehead.

Revolt in whatever way we want, with the spontaneity of the London rioters, with the certainty and willingness to die of religious fundamentalists or with the twinkling mischief of the trickster... Take to the streets, together, with the understanding that the feeling that you aren't being heard or seen or represented isn't psychosis; it's government policy.