Quotes about Protest

If there is no final place for civil disobedience, then the government has been made autonomous, and as such, it has been put in the place of the living God.

I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed, without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government.

Civil disobedience is not only the natural right of a people, especially when they have no effective voice in their own Government, but that it is also a substitute for violence or armed rebellion.

I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong.

Jesus was the most active resister known to history. His was nonviolence par excellence.

I feel much freer now that I am certain the pope is the Antichrist.

Mass civil disobedience was for the attainment of independence.

We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.

To accept injustice or segregation passively is to say to the oppressor that his actions are morally right.

We had no alternative except that of preparing for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and national community.

Through nonviolent resistance the Negro will be able to rise to the noble height of opposing the unjust system while loving the perpetrators of the system.

Shamed people rarely take stands against injustice. Such a stand would mean they would have to go public, which would only double the shame. Instead, once we are shamed, most of us try to make sense of it by believing we are getting what we deserve. So why would we protest?