Resistance Movements Quotes

In my day, MI6 - which I called the Circus in the books - stank of wartime nostalgia. People were defined by secret cachet: one man did something absolutely extraordinary in Norway; another was the darling of the French Resistance. We didn't even show passes to go in and out of the building.

A foreign power that stands sentry in the world cannot spare its local allies the retribution of those who brand them as “collaborators” and betrayers of the faith.

Thus, the forces and value systems that are most threatened by this shift are becoming the most coherent and are rising to the top as minority or plurality powers. But they do not represent either the shift, the change, or the future.

Before the Civil War, Canada was at the top of the underground railroad. If you made it into Canada, you were safe unless someone came and hauled you back. That was also true during the Vietnam War for draft resisters.

I have just written a book on the occupation of the Channel Islands, which is being published in Germany. Pursuing the Second World War is my passion because it's the most extraordinary period in history.

I hold it that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms are in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people, which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is medicine necessary for the sound health of government.

Satyagraha thrives on repression till at last the repressor is tired of it and the object of satyagraha is gained.

British-built railways in India helped the British to make money and maintain order and, as a by-product, served to unite the country, ripe for independence.

The war is in the mountains,” he said. “For as long as I can remember, they have killed us in the cities with decrees, not with bullets.

If future generations ask us what we are fighting for [in World War Two], we shall tell them the story of Lidice.

In the 19th century, when Muslims were looking at Europe as an example, they were independent; they were more self-confident. In the early 20th century, with the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the whole Middle East was colonized. And when you have colonization, what do you have? You have anti-colonization.

William R. Polk discusses the Spanish guerrilla war against Napoleon [ Bonaparte] and other cases where the conflict turns into a political war, and the invader, who usually has overwhelming power, loses because they can't fight the political war.

This paradigm of the war on terror, connecting all kinds of armed resistance around the globe in one huge ideological framework, as a new ideology at a stage in history when most of the major ideologies are gone, does not reflect the facts on the ground.

An awakened people who rely upon their nonviolent strength are independent in the face of any conceivable combination of the armed powers.

Many ethnic minorities chafed at the postcolonial nationalism of India and Pakistan, and some rebelled.

I don’t think that scholars and writers can stand on the sidelines when it comes to fascism and Nazism. There is nothing good to be said of them, and they need to be opposed. I didn’t want to simply write a history that would give people a sense of what happened. I wanted to bring the voices of anti-fascists who have been confronting these heinous ideologies, these heinous groups for decades. I wanted to bring their perspectives, their experiences, their outlooks, their successes and failures to readers in a way that encourages them to learn from them and apply some of these lessons to their own struggles against their local neo-Nazis or fascists.

It must be emphasized that nonviolent resistance is not a method for cowards; it does resist. If one uses this method because he is afraid or merely because he lacks the instruments of violence, he is not truly nonviolent. This is why Gandhi often said that if cowardice is the only alternative to violence, it is better to fight.

What I say is, that the real non-resistants can believe in direct action only, never in political action. For the basis of all political action is coercion; even when the State does good things, it finally rests on a club, a gun, or a prison, for its power to carry them through.

German history shows us that sometimes dictators can only be stopped by force.

The truth about Hamas and Islamic Jihad is that they don't prevent Israel from existing or even flourishing, they prevent Palestine from coming into existence.

Neoliberalism eats its own children. Disposability is central to how neoliberalism functions. I would not like to romanticize that, though, by suggesting that it creates dreamers. I would like to suggest that the radical imagination is so powerful, when employed collectively, that people will attempt to find solutions in ways that challenge the very conditions that made them disposable. That's where this sort of thing becomes interesting. We need to be careful about the dreaming quality here.

I was lucky because on the morning after the burning of the Reichstag I left my home very early to catch a train to Berlin for the conference of our student organization and that is the only reason why I escaped arrest.

To achieve the extirpation of Nazi tyranny there are no lengths of violence to which we will not go.

I and some colleagues came to the conclusion that as violence in this country was inevitable, it would be wrong and unrealistic for African leaders to continue preaching peace and non-violence at a time when the government met our peaceful demands with force. It was only when all else had failed, when all channels of peaceful protest had been barred to us, that the decision was made to embark on violent forms of political struggle.

… saving Asia from the control of the Anglo-Saxons …. Washing the influences of British and American capitalism out of Asia