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In between war and passivity, there are a thousand possibilities.
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
Thousand
War
Passivity
Possibilities
Possibility
More quotes by Howard Zinn
If you join a fight for social justice you may win or lose, but just by being part of the struggle, you win, and your life will be better for it.
Howard Zinn
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
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
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
I try to tell each group that it is not alone, and that the very people who are disheartened by the absence of a national movement are themselves proof of the potential for such a movement.
Howard Zinn
To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
Howard Zinn
I believe that it is preferable sometimes to have one candidate rather another candidate, while you understand that that is not the solution. Sometimes the lesser evil is not so lesser, so you want to ignore that, and you either do not vote or vote for third party as a protest against the party system.
Howard Zinn
The only hope lies in the fact that the American people - like people everywhere - are basically decent people with common sense.
Howard Zinn
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
[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
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.
Howard Zinn
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
War in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children.
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
I have come to believe that our lives can be turned in a different direction, our minds adopt a different way of thinking, by some significant, though small event. That belief can be frightening, or exhilarating, depending on whether you just contemplate it or do something with it.
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
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
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
Pessimism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy it reproduces itself by crippling our willingness to act.
Howard Zinn
If what your country is doing seems to you practically and morally wrong, is dissent the highest form of patriotism?
Howard Zinn
