Quote

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

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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
Wells
Millions
Totally
Human
Results
Effect
Humans
Word
Million
Well
Understand
Result
Hesitate
Take
Comes
Begin
Utter
Every
Another
Effects
Insignificant
People
Seems
Wouldn
Acts
Change
Seem
Tiny

More quotes by Howard Zinn

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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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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?
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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.
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Sometimes it's a short step from banning to burning.
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I have no regrets about my political activity, only that I sometimes got carried away with it and didn't find the right balance between obligations to my family and my need to be involved in social movements.
Howard Zinn
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People should go where they are not supposed to go, say what they are not supposed to say, and stay when they are told to leave.
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Americans have been taught that their nation is civilized and humane. But, too often, U.S. actions have been uncivilized and inhumane.
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Use the Day of Atonement not to pray for the dead but to act for the living, to rescue those about to die.
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Even if you assume presidents were democratically elected they still have no right to keep secrets from the American people.
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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.
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When the United States fought in Vietnam, it was organized modern technology versus organized human beings, and the human beings won.
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George Orwell said, Whoever controls the past controls the future, by which he meant that history is incredibly important in shaping the world view of the next generation of people.
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You can't be neutral on a moving train.
Howard Zinn
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Tyranny is Tyranny, let it come from whom it may.
Howard Zinn
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Education can, and should be, dangerous.
Howard Zinn
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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
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And in such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners.
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If racism can't be shown to be natural then it is the result of certain conditions, and we are impelled to eliminate those conditions.
Howard Zinn
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Historically, the most terrible things - war, genocide, and slavery - have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience.
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The only hope lies in the fact that the American people - like people everywhere - are basically decent people with common sense.
Howard Zinn