Lawful Protest Quotes

A community has not ceased to be essentially law-abiding merely because it refuses to practice literal obedience. There is such a thing as orderly disobedience to a statute, a disobedience which is open, frankly avowed, and in conformity with the general sense of what is reasonable

It will be wrong of us to approach our grievances by threatening to disobey the laws or by threatening the integrity of our nation.

I've been arrested three times. I don't like getting arrested, but it's not so bad when it's an organized form of nonviolent disobedience. It's something appealing to a higher law.

Obviously you follow the law of the land, there are many laws I disagree with, but you follow the law. You fight to change the law, you don't break the law. I believe that's the American way.

At some point, the law has to command respect, and there is a lawful way to change it.

Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it. It is a corrective to the sluggishness of "the proper channels," a way of breaking through passages blocked by tradition and prejudice. It is disruptive and troublesome, but it is a necessary disruption, a healthy troublesome.

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

I observe to the letter all laws that make sense but combat those that are obsolete or absurd.