Arthur Scargill Quotes

It came home to me indelibly that I was never going to change anything in America by walking around carrying a sign. It was a great revelation. It saved me a lot of anxiety and a lot of wasted energy.

Activism could be defined as activities engaged in by individuals to change there of others situation.

We are at the point where we can mobilize all of this righteous indignation into a powerful mass movement.

I am not naive enough to believe that voting is the only way to bring about transformational change, just as I know that protest alone is not the sole solution to the challenges we face.

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

Activism, to me, I don't know if it really works. It may work for somebody else, but it does not work for me.

More people, especially young people, are realising that if they want change, they've got to go about it themselves - they can't depend on a particular person, i.e. me, to do all the work. They are less easy to fool than they used to be, they now know what's going on all over the world.

Activists are generally doers - rather than watching television and thinking about the world they will put there energies into doing something 'active' to change the (political) situation.

You should not neglect agitation; each of you should make it his task.

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

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.

Every successful social movement in this country's history has used disruption as a strategy to fight for social change. Whether it was the Boston Tea Party to the sit-ins at lunch counters throughout the South, no change has been won without disruptive action.

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

Getting political representation is important, but change comes through using direct action, campaigning, and trade unions.

One doesn't have to be an activist and start a movement.

We're seeing young people find their own voices and find their activism.

Non-violent protests have reached a plateau. There is no other way but to get into politics to make your voice heard.

It is our experience that the nation doesn't move around questions of genuine equality for the poor and for black people until it is confronted massively, dramatically in terms of direct action.

If democracy were to be given any meaning, if it were to go beyond the limits of capitalism and nationalism, this would not come, if history were any guide, from the top. It would come through citizen's movements, educating, organizing, agitating, striking, boycotting, demonstrating, threatening those in power with disruption of the stability they needed.

There comes an hour when protest no longer suffices; after philosophy there must be action; the strong hand finishes what the idea has sketched.

One does not fight to influence change and then leave the change to someone else to bring about.

The really critical thing isn't who's sitting in he White House, but who is sitting in the streets, in the cafeterias, in the halls of government, in the factories. Who is protesting, who is occupying offices and demonstrating ? - those are the things that determine what happens.

One does not necessarily have to wait for a revolutionary situation: it can be created.

Change only takes place through action, not through meditation and prayer.

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