Abbie Hoffman Quotes

There is absolutely no greater high than challenging the power structure as a nobody, giving it your all, and winning. I think I've learned that lesson twice now. The essence of successful revolution, be it for an individual, a community of individuals, or a nation, depends on accepting that challenge.

Fight the power that be. Fight the power.

First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Then they fight you. And then you win.

it is immoral for powerless people to accept this powerlessness. They may not succeed in getting power but they can fight for it, and if enough fight for it, it makes it very difficult for the people with the big sticks.

I think the greatest legacy of the 1960s was the general feeling that not only can you fight the powers that be, but you can win.

You've got to get people to believe that change is possible... You have to show that you can fight things successfully even if you don't win.

They told us we wouldn’t get here. And there were those who said that we would get here only over their dead bodies, but all the world today knows that we are here and that we are standing before the forces of power in the state of Alabama saying, ‘We ain’t going to let nobody turn us around.’

Changes and progress very rarely are gifts from above. They come out of struggles from below.

Power is never so overwhelming that there's no room for resistance.

There will be no prison which can hold our movement down.

There's nothing automatic about political change, about liberation.

Our task, of course, is to transmute the anger that is affliction into the anger that is determination to bring about change. I think, in fact, that one could give that as a definition of revolution.

Every revolution has its counterrevolution - that is a sign the revolution is for real.

So we must stand together to resist, for we will get what we can take - just that and no more.

An oppressed people will always rise.

I was told I would become nothing. Now I am showing people how big nothing is.

There is always a moment in any kind of struggle when one feels in full bloom. Vivid. Alive…. During my years of being close to people engaged in changing the world, I have seen fear turn into courage. Sorrow into joy. Funerals into celebrations. Because whatever the consequences, people, standing side by side, have expressed who they really are, and that ultimately they believe in the love of the world and each other enough to be that-which is the foundation of activism.

Disobey the rules; ask for more; leave your wretchedness behind; organize with your brothers and sisters; never accept the hand of fate.

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will.

Oppression costs the oppressor too much if the oppressed stand up and protest.

Martyrdom does not end something. It is only the beginning.

Power Concedes Nothing

It was imperative to make common cause with the oppressed in order to secure a new system opposed to the ambitions and governing habits of the oppressors.

The Black Panther Party stood up and said that we don't care what anybody says. We don't think fighting fire with fire is best; we think you fight fire with water best.

To pursue your dreams, to have them come true, to have made a difference, to have changed society, to have fought against powerful forces... that's a life well-spent.