Protest Quotes

“The only life that matters is in your mind. The only truth is the one that lives invisibly, that waits even after you close the book. Silence, too, is a kind of music. Silence will last.”
― Madeleine Thien, Do Not Say We Have Nothing

“During the flames of controversy, opinions, mass disputes, conflict, and world news, sometimes the most precious, refreshing, peaceful words to hear amidst all the chaos are simply and humbly 'I don't know.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“You can write the most detailed, vivid description of an ax entering a skull, and nobody will say a word in protest. But if you write a similarly detailed description of a penis entering a vagina, you get letters from people saying they'll never read you again. What the hell? Penises entering vaginas bring a lot more joy into the world than axes entering skulls.”
― George R. R. Martin

“Never in history has violence been initiated by the oppressed. How could they be the initiators, if they themselves are the result of violence?”
― Paolo Freire

“Stop praying for salvation when it is clear,
You are the saviours that we need around here.”
― Harry Whitewolf, Rhyme and Rebellion

“They were really willing to pay to avoid any trouble. No doubt they had overestimated the ability of academics to make a nuisance of themselves. It had been years since an academic title gained you access to major media.... Even if all the university professors in France had risen up in protest, almost nobody would have noticed, but apparently they hadn't found that out in Saudi Arabia. They still believed, deep down, in the power of the intellectual elite. It was almost touching.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Soumission

“Confrontation is not bad. Goodness is supposed to confront evil.”
― Fred Shuttlesworth

“We will martyr ourselves, suffering under the weight of a non-reciprocal relationship until some part of us bursts in protest. Suddenly, we lose our mind, and allowing ourselves to heap all manner of nastiness, name calling, patronizing, death threats on the “deserving” jerk who has it coming after all we do for him/her! As the final insult rings across the room and we regain consciousness, we are horrified by what has come out of our mouth. After all, we LOVE these people, and we quickly move into anxious terror that this time we have gone too far . . . this time we crossed the line and they will leave us. So, we hunker back down and the martyrdom begins again. It’s a terrible cycle.”
― Mary Crocker Cook, Awakening Hope. A Developmental, Behavioral, Biological Approach to Codependency Treatment.

“Where there is no derision the people perish," said Chiffan.

"Now who said that?" asked Steenhold, always anxious to check his quotations. "It sounds familiar."

"I said it," said Chiffan. "Get on with your suggestions.”
― H.G. Wells, The Holy Terror

“Much protest is naïve; it expects quick, visible improvement and despairs and gives up when such improvement does not come. Protesters who hold out longer have perhaps understood that success is not the proper goal. If protest depended on success, there would be little protest of any durability or significance. History simply affords too little evidence that anyone’s individual protest is of any use. Protest that endures, I think, is moved by a hope far more modest than that of public success: namely, the hope of preserving qualities in one’s own heart and spirit that would be destroyed by acquiescence.”
― Wendell Berry, What Are People For?

“At least I had frost on my nose, boots on my feet, and protest in my mouth.”
― Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums

“Bolivian women sewed their lips shut for days. They threaded needles through their skin to stop their speech, to show what good speaking had done them.”
― Leslie Jamison, The Empathy Exams

“FLIES IN DISGUISE


Tell me,
Have you
Really seen
Flies in a child's eyes
Or heard their hungry cries
In the middle
Of the night?

Don't lie.

You can protest all you want
About peace
And genocide,
But unless you are willing
To take beatings for your fights,
Your display of trendy showmanship
Simply ain't right.

Go on,
Carry your useless signs
About an issue the world
Already abhors,
But it's TRUE
Heartfelt actions
That will prevent
Suits and
Senators
From creating
Any more wars.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“I have always believed there is great value in studying the flaws of mankind and men —even fictional characters. All of us are flawed. All of us are diminished by some form of prejudice and bias. If a fictional character is to be realistic, he must struggle with imperfections and weaknesses.”
― K. Lee Lerner, Government, Politics, and Protest:: Essential Primary Sources

“Nowadays, a simple faulty brake light traffic stop, can get a black person killed. It's better to fix the broken light bulb, then having to face and cooperate with a senseless police officer.”
― Anthony Liccione

“Years ago, a member of Congress slipped a laminated quote into my hand that he must have thought I would find meaningful. I paid little attention at first and unfortunately I don’t recall just who gave me the quote. I placed it next to my voting card and have carried it ever since. The quote came from Elie Wiesel’s book One Generation After. The quote was entitled “Why I Protest.”

Author Elie Wiesel tells the story of the one righteous man of Sodom, who walked the streets protesting against the injustice of this city. People made fun of him, derided him. Finally, a young person asked: “Why do you continue your protest against evil; can’t you see no one is paying attention to you?” He answered, “I’ll tell you why I continue. In the beginning, I thought I would change people. Today, I know I cannot. Yet, if I continue my protest, at least I will prevent others from changing me.”

I’m not that pessimistic that we can’t change people’s beliefs or that people will not respond to the message of liberty and peace. But we must always be on guard not to let others change us once we gain the confidence that we are on the right track in the search for truth.”
― Ron Paul, Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedom

“The voice of protest is the voice of another and an ancient civilization which seems to have bred in us the instinct to enjoy and fight rather than to suffer and understand.”
― Virginia Woolf, The Common Reader

“Either offend or represent, don’t be a spectator.”
― Pradeepa Pandiyan

“I'm all for fighting tyranny and oppression.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly

“Sometimes a citizenry should not simply "be good". You have to leave space for dissent, real dissent.”
― Sherry Turkle, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other

“Isn't it strange how wise counsel can cool the hottest head? He made sense but my heart screamed protest.”
― Robin Hobb, Fool's Quest

“Human rights is a numbers game. Who is going to care if only 20 people pitch for a protest?”
― Christina Engela

“Sometimes the very things that we’re expending our lives to sustain are the very things that are killing our ability to live. And against our blind and frequently raging protests, these are the very things that God let’s die so that we can live.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“But I believe that, once the shock settles, faith and energy will return. Because let’s be real: we always knew this shit wasn’t going to be easy. Colonial power, patriarchal power, capitalist power must always and everywhere be battled, because they never, ever quit. We have to keep fighting, because otherwise there will be no future—all will be consumed. Those of us whose ancestors were owned and bred like animals know that future all too well, because it is, in part, our past. And we know that by fighting, against all odds, we who had nothing, not even our real names, transformed the universe. Our ancestors did this with very little, and we who have more must do the same. This is the joyous destiny of our people—to bury the arc of the moral universe so deep in justice that it will never be undone.”
― Junot Díaz

“But this anti-war protest, is far from a success; it is just a placebo for the people. These peacemakers feel so satisfied, gratified; gay-gallant-and-gleeful. But they do not achieve anything acceptable, perceptible; or peaceful.”
― Joss Sheldon, 'Involution & Evolution': A rhyming anti-war novel

“Het is geen roman, 't is een aanklacht!”
― Multatuli

“If peaceful protesting really worked, the need to peacefully protest would have subsided to almost zero a long time ago! Instead, the thing that has subsided to almost zero are the number of complaints filed against police officers that are actually upheld.”
― Steven Magee

“In protesting for your rights in any form you may, but it's only good, If they can understand your problems and feelings and not only to judge you.”
― Oscar Auliq-Ice

“Richard Nixon had made a fatal error in ignoring the politico-meteorological dimension when he announced the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia on April 30, 1970. The invasion of Laos, on the other hand, happened in February 1971, and the campuses were quiet. Who wants to stage a walkout in February?”
― Rebecca Goldstein, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction

“If outrage were a sign of godliness, then the devil would be the godliest soul in Creation.”
― Russell D. Moore, Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel