I hate government. I hate power. I think that man's existence, insofar as he achieves anything, is to resist power, to minimize power, to devise systems of society in which power is the least exerted.
Liberty is meaningless if it is only the liberty to agree with those in power.
The noble title of "dissident" must be earned rather than claimed; it connotes sacrifice and risk rather than mere disagreement.
Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders…and millions have been killed because of this obedience…Our problem is that people are obedient allover the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves… (and) the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.
For me all governments are my enemies and I've never made any bones about it any other way other than directly, and I don't fly the left flag or the right flag, me, I'm common sense.
Just make sure your children hate authority and they'll do fine.
Things like rebellion and resistance to authority are absolutely as much a part of the human experience as love and cars are, and it's a part that doesn't get covered very much in pop music.
There is civil disobedience against the military machine, protest against police brutality directed especially at people of color.
The greatest enemy of authority, therefore, is contempt, and the surest way to undermine it is laughter.
Angry contradiction of the patriarch is not creativity; it's delinquency calling for attention. Difference for the sake of difference is as empty an achievement as slavishly following the commercial imperative.
The greatest danger to the State is independent intellectual criticism.
Countless people...will hate the New World Order...and will die protesting against it...we have to bear in mind the distress of a generation or so of malcontents.
I have never listened to authority. It is not in my DNA.
In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.
There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even tacitly take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.
Whenever citizens are seen routinely as enemies of their own government, writers are rountinely seen to be the most dangerous enemies.
The ultimate test of a society's freedom is not how it treats its good, obedient, compliant citizens; it's how it treats its dissidents.
The rule is the worst thing. You just want to break it.
I'm more prone to anarchy than I am to control - even though I'm a film director.
I don't want power. I just object to idiots having power over me.
Rules and school are tools for fools! I don't give two mules for rules.
Sanctity and genius are as rebellious as vice.
When an individual wishes to stand in opposition to authority, he does best to find support for his position from others in his group. The mutual support provided by men for each other is the strongest bulwark we have against the excesses of authority.
Yes I know my enemies. They're the teachers who taught me to fight me, compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission, ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality, the elite, all of which are American dreams.
Commander, I always used to consider that you had a definite anti-authoritarian streak in you.” “Sir?” “It seems that you have managed to retain this even though you are authority.” “Sir?” “That’s practically zen.
