William O. Douglas Quotes

I beg you not to resort to demonstrations, for they have become nothing but burned paper.

Capitalism is so successful economically that it creates, educates and subsidizes a vested interest in social unrest.

A minority of malcontents, some justly, some unjustly, angry with the present state of things, will always exist in this world.

Why does the guerrilla fighter fight? We must come to the inevitable conclusion that the guerrilla fighter is a social reformer, that he takes up arms responding to the angry protest of the people against their oppressors, and that he fights in order to change the social system that keeps all his unarmed brothers in ignominy and misery.

The Bill was talked out! Peaceful methods had failed…. As the year 1905 went on, the Liberal leaders counted upon early political office. Manchester – the Free Trade Hall – was again to be the scene of a rally at which the Liberal Party would utter their war cry for the General Election. Here was my chance! Now there should be an act the effect of which would remain, a protest not of word but of deed. Prison this time! Prison would mean a fact that could not fade from the record.

When the prison, stake or scaffold can no longer silence the voice of the protesting minority, progress moves on a step, but not until then.

The poor man … will be swayed by his sense of injury against the men who try to hold what they have improperly won… the most awful passions will be let loose.

The signs and banners of protesters are the zoom lenses by which we can focus on the difficult issues of a society.

We are on the threshold of a significant breakthrough, and the greatest weapon is the mass demonstration.

Usually the impetus of a revolution is a relatively small group with positive goals but also a larger collection of people with resentments.

I am against revolutions. We have had negative experience with coups and rallies in the past. We remember the shooting at the White House in Moscow The new Russian protest is the most beautiful, most peaceful, most intelligent protest in the world—not a single broken window, not a single burned care or victim.

Protest is when I say this does not please me. Resistance is when I ensure what does not please me occurs no more.

If reforms do not come when people are at peace, of course, they have to come through violent upheavals, so as I looked out I thought: "Thank God, that this nation has had the courage to face the need of changes before we reached the point where bloodshed was the only way to achieve a change.

Rebellions broke out, from the full-scale political revolution of Dorr’s rebellion in Rhode Island to urban violence and protest, often by out of work whites taking out their anger on African Americans or Irish Americans. In response, leaders had to come to terms with the role of force in a democracy.

How long can we keep kidding these people? How long before they turn their guns in the other direction?

Poverty gives rise to the desire for change, the desire for action and the desire for revolution.

There are actually not too many people in the prisons. There were hundreds and thousands of people who came on the streets voicing their opinions. If we had to capture all of them, the prisons would not even have space. The few that are in prison are the ones who vandalized and created violence and took away the safety of the people.

If apartheid is removed, then the violence that is necessary to maintain it will be removed along with the pressures from apartheid which create a violent response.

I can't help but believe that at some time in the not-too-distant future, there is going to be another movement to change these systemic conditions of poverty, injustice, and violence in people's lives. That is where we've got to go, and it is going to be a struggle.

Revolution is a trivial shift in the emphasis of suffering.

In entrepreneurial circles, it's clear to me that violence, hatred, and discrimination - or whatever you want to label it - is another category where we need to pay attention to disruption before it changes the world in ways we don't want it to.

The violent rioting that is sometimes now being called protesting - it makes the emotions so high that you almost cannot see the insults and injuries that are the people are suffering.

I've been trying to understand conflict and violence ever since I was a kid. You know. There were a few things that happened even on my block - the Black Panthers used to be right around the corner from where we were.

The burdens of generations of poverty and powerlessness lie heavy in the fields of America. If we fail, there are those who will see violence as the shortcut to change.

Chicago, I feel, is a microcosm for the segregated, violent environment that is America. I try to not only speak about these things in music, but also try to address these things in real life tangibly with action.