Quote

Historically, the most terrible things - war, genocide, and slavery - have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience.

Howard Zinn

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Howard Zinn
Age: 87 †
Born: 1922
Born: August 24
Died: 2010
Died: January 27
Film Director
Historian
Historian Of The Modern Age
Human Rights Activist
Journalist
Labor Historian
Pacifist
Peace Activist
Playwright
Brooklyn
New York
Results
Resulted
Peace
Historically
War
Disobedience
History
Genocide
Things
Obedience
Slavery
Terrible
Worst

More quotes by Howard Zinn

Image
The violence of our time is caused by obedience.
Howard Zinn
Image
The United States builds weapons presumably secretly, and then it sells them to other countries. So the whole business of secrecy is kind of a fake issue because hardly anything technological remains a secret for very long.
Howard Zinn
Image
[Nationalism is] a set of beliefs taught to each generation in which the Motherland or the Fatherland is an object of veneration and becomes a burning cause for which one becomes willing to kill the children of other Motherlands or Fatherlands.
Howard Zinn
Image
The mountain of history books under which we all stand leans so heavily in the other direction-so tremblingly respectful of states and statesmen and so disrespectful, by inattention, to people's movements-that we need some counterforce to avoid being crushed into submission.
Howard Zinn
Image
Terrorism and war have something in common. They both involve the killing of innocent people to achieve what the killers believe is a good end.
Howard Zinn
Image
Charles Beard warned us that governments-inc luding the government of the United States-are not neutral, that they represent the dominant economic interests, and that their Constitutions are intended to serve these interests.
Howard Zinn
Image
We must transfer our anger to the brutalities of our time.
Howard Zinn
Image
I think people are dazzled by Obama's rhetoric, and that people ought to begin to understand that Obama is going to be a mediocre president — which means, in our time, a dangerous president — unless there is some national movement to push him in a better direction.
Howard Zinn
Image
Meditation is simply about being yourself and knowing about who that is. It is about coming to realize that you are on a path whether you like it or not, namely the path that is your life. - Jon Kabat
Howard Zinn
Image
It's a strange thing, we think that law brings order. Law doesn't. How do we know that law does not bring order? Look around us. We live under the rule of law. Notice how much order we have?
Howard Zinn
Image
We are not hated because we practice democracy, value freedom, or uphold human rights. We are hated because our government denies these things to people in Third World countries whose resources are coveted by multinational corporations. That hatred we have sown has come back to haunt us in the form of terrorism....
Howard Zinn
Image
One of the problems with dealing with anarchism is that there are many people whose ideas are anarchist, but who do not necessarily call themselves anarchists.
Howard Zinn
Image
Education can, and should be, dangerous.
Howard Zinn
Image
If what your country is doing seems to you practically and morally wrong, is dissent the highest form of patriotism?
Howard Zinn
Image
Democracy depends on people speaking out, and in times of great crisis, on people creating a commotion.
Howard Zinn
Image
Is not nationalism - that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder - one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred? These ways of thinking - cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on - have been useful to those in power, and deadly for those out of power.
Howard Zinn
Image
Let's face a historical truth: we have never had a free market, we have always had government intervention in the economy, and indeed that intervention has been welcomed by the captains of finance and industry. They had no quarrel with big government when it served their needs.
Howard Zinn
Image
War is terrorism, magnified a hundred times.
Howard Zinn
Image
The chief problem in historical honesty is not outright lying. It is omission or de-emphasis of important data. The definition of 'important', of course, depends on one's values.
Howard Zinn
Image
But I suppose the most revolutionary act one can engage in is... to tell the truth.
Howard Zinn