Quote

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

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
Lying
Machines
Hope
Moved
Declare
Human
Pressure
Conform
Humans
However
Conformity
Sometimes
Lies
Injustice
Beings
Independence
Possibility
Dare
Powerful
Historical

More quotes by Howard Zinn

Image
The power of a bold idea uttered publicly in defiance of dominant opinion cannot be easily measured. Those special people who speak out in such a way as to shake up not only the self-assurance of their enemies, but the complacency of their friends, are precious catalysts for change.
Howard Zinn
Image
I do take the threat of terrorism seriously. You cannot eliminate that threat or diminish that threat by bombing a country.
Howard Zinn
Image
The only hope lies in the fact that the American people - like people everywhere - are basically decent people with common sense.
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
Every word you utter to another human being has an effect, but you don't know it. If people begin to understand that change comes about as a result of a million tiny acts that seem totally insignificant, well then, they wouldn't hesitate to take those tiny acts.
Howard Zinn
Image
Where progress has been made, wherever any kind of injustice has been overturned, it’s been because people acted as citizens, and not as politicians. They didn’t just moan. They worked, they acted, they organized, they rioted if necessary to bring their situation to the attention of people in power. And that’s what we have to do today.
Howard Zinn
Image
Will Iraq be a democracy? The question is, 'Will America be a democracy?'
Howard Zinn
Image
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
Image
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
Image
The Roman Empire came to an end, but the Roman people didn't come to an end, so I see the American Empire coming to an end just as other empires have come to an end.
Howard Zinn
Image
Before God and high heaven, is there a law for one man which is not a law for every other man?
Howard Zinn
Image
[W]e're taught that if one person kills another person, that is murder but if a government kills a hundred thousand persons, that is patriotism.
Howard Zinn
Image
There was something horrifying in the realization that, in this twenty-first century of what we call 'civilization,' we have carved up what we claim is one world into 200 artificially created entities we call 'nations' and armed to apprehend or kill anyone who crosses a boundary.
Howard Zinn
Image
War in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children.
Howard Zinn
Image
What is called “apathy” is, I believe, a feeling of helplessness on the part of the ordinary citizen, a feeling of impotence in the face of enormous power. It’s not that people are apathetic they do care about what is going on, but don’t know what to do about it, so they do nothing, and appear to be indifferent.
Howard Zinn
Image
The term 'just war' is an internal contradiction. War is inherently unjust, and the great challenge of our time is how to deal with evil, tyranny and oppression without killing huge numbers of people.
Howard Zinn
Image
Perhaps the most important thing I learned was about democracy, that democracy is not our government, our constitution, our legal structure. Too often they are enemies of democracy.
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
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
That whole idea of threats to national security is a very interesting one. The phrase is very useful for the government to try to encompass the citizenry in the same box as the government is in. To say, We're all in this together. It threatens all of us.
Howard Zinn