Wendell Berry Quotes

My first civil disobedience arrest for social justice was in 1986 for protesting the SDI.

I have been arrested several times protesting.

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.

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

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

I talked to Shailene Woodley the next day [after arrest]. She was fine, and she was very happy. She knew that it brought attention to a cause that she cared very much about. She was in high spirits and knew that was a possibility when she was protesting. The people who arrested her, if they were trying to prove a point of not to protest, they only helped the cause.

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

A great many of us must move from words to acts - from words of dissent to acts of disobedience.

I've done a lot of guerrilla theater in my time.

King consciously steered away from legal claims and instead relied on civil disobedience.

Peaceful, lawful protest - if it is effective - is innately disruptive of 'business as usual.' That is why it is effective.

The conservation movement, the environmental movement as we know it, really needed to adopt some of the tactics that the civil rights movement and the anti-nuclear movement were already using successfully.

People have to carry on with their lives, so only so much direct action can take place. Anti-nuclear activism may look dormant from appearances, but it’s there, like magma. It’s still brewing, and the next trigger might be another big protest or political change,

I don't even really see sit-ins and marches as passive. I see them as quite assertive. I see those as emotionally aggressive tactics. I see people putting their lives on the line and being bold and brave.

Civil disobedience has almost always been about expression. Generally, it's nonviolent, as defined by Henry David Thoreau, Gandhi, and King.

Occupy has to continue as a bold, in-your-face movement - occupying banks, corporate headquarters, board meetings, campuses and Wall Street itself. We need weekly - if not daily - nonviolent assaults right on Wall Street.

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

The absolute key issue is: how do you create enough political pressure? It's up to us to create that political will and there are tried and tested techniques for doing that. So we're talking about the need for civil disobedience that escalates into a rebellion and uprising.

We spent a lot of time talking about politics at home. We went to the camp at Greenham Common.

I think there is a role for non-violent direct action when democratic channels have failed.

Change comes when people are willing to commit acts of peaceful civil disobedience.

One of the tensions in XR are people who want to slow down and be strategic and then people who think it's an emergency, let's get out on the street now. There have been conflicts and disagreements.

Some people see protesting as a bit of a dirty thing, and certainly the idea of getting arrested was not on people's radar.

The only weapon we have is our bodies, and we need to tuck them in places so wheels don't turn

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