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But human beings are not machines, and however powerful the pressure to conform, they sometimes are so moved by what they see as injustice that they dare to declare their independence. In that historical possibility lies hope.
Howard Zinn
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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
Humans
However
Conformity
Sometimes
Lies
Injustice
Beings
Independence
Possibility
Dare
Powerful
Historical
Lying
Machines
Hope
Moved
Declare
Human
Pressure
Conform
More quotes by Howard Zinn
I am an anarchist, and according to anarchist principles nation states become obstacles to a true humanistic globalization.
Howard Zinn
When a nation issues ultimatums, it leaves no room for compromise and ensures that war will continue.
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Tyranny is Tyranny, let it come from whom it may.
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I knew that a historian (or a journalist, or anyone telling a story) was forced to choose, out of an infinite number of facts, what to present, what to omit. And that decision inevitably would reflect, whether consciously or not, the interests of the historian.
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Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience.
Howard Zinn
I was a bombadier in WW 2. When you are up 30,000 feet you do not hear the screams or smell the blood or see those without limbs or eyes. It was not til I read Hersey's Hiroshima that I realized what bomber pilots do.
Howard Zinn
Diverse audiences can be just as misled as homogenous audiences.
Howard Zinn
I don't think we can depend on Congress. In the American political system - we have been brought up to believe that the American political system works beautifully it is democratic Congress represents us the President is elected, he represents us - it doesn't work that way.
Howard Zinn
History is important. If you don't know history it is as if you were born yesterday. And if you were born yesterday, anybody up there in a position of power can tell you anything, and you have no way of checking up on it.
Howard Zinn
The cry of the poor is is not always just, but if you don't listen to it, you will never know what justice is.
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When you fight a war against a tyrant, who do you kill? You kill the victims of the tyrant.
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The meaning ... of a writer will be found not just in what he intends to say, or what he does literally say, but in the effect of his writing on living beings.
Howard Zinn
When the United States fought in Vietnam, it was organized modern technology versus organized human beings, and the human beings won.
Howard Zinn
The democratic principle, enunciated in the words of the Declaration of Independence, declared that government was secondary, that the people who established it were primary. Thus, the future of democracy depended on the people, and their growing consciousness of what was the decent way to relate to their fellow human beings all over the world.
Howard Zinn
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
One certain effect of war is to diminish freedom of expression.
Howard Zinn
Pessimism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy it reproduces itself by crippling our willingness to act.
Howard Zinn
With the indiscriminate nature of modern military technology (no such thing as a smart bomb, it turns out) all wars are wars against civilians, and are therefore inherently immoral. This is true even when a war is considered just, because it is fought against a tyrant, against an aggressor, to correct a stolen boundary.
Howard Zinn
Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders . . . . and millions have been killed because of this obedience . . . .
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Civil disobedience is not something outside the realm of democracy. Democracy requires civil disobedience. Without civil disobedience democracy does not exist.
Howard Zinn