Quote

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

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
Without
Deal
Internals
Great
Deals
Unjust
Time
Huge
Internal
People
Numbers
Contradiction
Challenges
Oppression
Term
Tyranny
Evil
Killing
War
Challenge
Inherently

More quotes by Howard Zinn

Image
I had always insisted that a good education was a synthesis of book learning and involvement in social action, that each enriched the other. I wanted my students to know that the accumulation of knowledge, while fascinating in itself, is not sufficient as long as so many people in the world have no opportunity to experience that fascination.
Howard Zinn
Image
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.
Howard Zinn
Image
Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold.
Howard Zinn
Image
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
Image
It's not right to respond to terrorism by terrorizing other people. And furthermore, it's not going to help. Then you might say, Yes, it's terrorizing people, but it's worth doing because it will end terrorism. But how much common sense does it take to know that you cannot end terrorism by indiscriminately dropping bombs?
Howard Zinn
Image
When we organize with one another, when we get involved, when we stand up and speak out together, we can create a power no government can suppress.
Howard Zinn
Image
These people—the employed, the somewhat privileged—are drawn into alliance with the elite. They become the guards of the system, buffers between the upper and lower classes. If they stop obeying, the system falls.
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
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
Image
Tyranny is Tyranny, let it come from whom it may.
Howard Zinn
Image
The violence of our time is caused by obedience.
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
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
Diverse audiences can be just as misled as homogenous audiences.
Howard Zinn
Image
I wanted to be a part of history and not just a recorder and teacher of history. So that kind of attitude towards history, history itself as a political act, has always informed my writing and my teaching.
Howard Zinn
Image
I am an anarchist, and according to anarchist principles nation states become obstacles to a true humanistic globalization.
Howard Zinn
Image
Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy it is absolutely essential to it. It is a corrective to the sluggishness of the proper channels, a way of breaking through passages blocked by tradition and prejudice. It is disruptive and troublesome, but it is a necessary disruption, a healthy troublesome.
Howard Zinn
Image
What matters most is not who is sitting in the White House, but who is sitting in - and who is marching outside the White House, pushing for change.
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
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.
Howard Zinn