Violence is already active here; it is built into the very structure od the existing society. If we seek a world in which men do the least possible violence to each other (which is to state just the negative of it), then we are committed not simply to try to avoid violence ourselves, but to try to destroy patterns of violence which already exist.
Barbara Deming
A great many of us [must] move from words to acts - from words of dissent to acts of disobedience.
words dissent great
I think the only choice that will enable us to hold to our vision... Is one that abandons the concept of naming enemies and adopts a concept familiar to the nonviolent tradition: naming behavior that is oppressive...
vision choice tradition enemies behavior naming
The longer we listen to one another - with real attention - the more commonality we will find in all our lives. That is, if we are careful to exchange with one another life stories and not simply opinions.
life stories real opinions attention lives listen find
Vengeance is not the point; change is. But the trouble is that in most people's minds the thought of victory and the thought of punishing the enemy coincide.
trouble victory change people mind thought vengeance enemy minds
I learned always to trust my own deep sense of what I should do, and not just obediently trust the judgment of others even others better than I am.
trust sense judgment deep learned
Think first of the action that is right to take, think later about coping with one's fears.
rights action fears coping
We learn best to listen to our own voices if we are listening at the same time to other women -- whose stories, for all our differences, turn out, if we listen well, to be our stories also.
women listening time stories differences learn listen voices
To resort to power one need not be violent, and to speak to conscience one need not be meek. The most effective action both resorts to power and engages conscience.
conscience power action speak
Make it impossible for [the authority] to operate within the system as usual... Making it impossible for him simply to strike back without thought and with all his strength.
strength system thought impossible
Nonviolent actions does not have to get others to be nice. It can in effect force them to consult their consciences.
force nice actions effect
prison violence abolition
.. The court, as now constituted, would be meaningless without the jail which gives it its power. But if there is anything I have learned by being in jail, it is that prisons are wrong, simply and unqualifiedly wrong.
prison jail abolition courts
After the revolution, it might very well remain necessary to place people where they could not do harm to others. But the one under restraint should be cut off from the rest of society as little as possible.
places revolution people society rest
All prisons that have existed in our society to date put people away as no human being should ever be put away.
prison people society
People who attack others need rationalizations for doing so. We undermine those rationalizations.
people
Showing 1 to 15 of 24 results
You must log in to post a comment.
There are no comments yet.