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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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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
Right
Movement
Regrets
Sometimes
Family
Movements
Needs
Social
Carried
Away
Obligation
Political
Regret
Didn
Activity
Find
Balance
Need
Involved
Obligations

More quotes by Howard Zinn

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One certain effect of war is to diminish freedom of expression.
Howard Zinn
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Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.
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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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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
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Democracy depends on people speaking out, and in times of great crisis, on people creating a commotion.
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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.
Howard Zinn
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In the United States today, the Declaration of Independence hangs on schoolroom walls, but foreign policy follows Machiavelli.
Howard Zinn
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Control in modern times requires more than force, more than law. It requires that a population dangerously concentrated in cities and factories, whose lives are filled with cause for rebellion, be taught that all is right as it is.
Howard Zinn
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If what your country is doing seems to you practically and morally wrong, is dissent the highest form of patriotism?
Howard Zinn
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I am not an absolute pacifist, because I can't rule out the possibility that under some, carefully defined circumstances, some degree of violence may be justified, if it is focused directly at a great evil.
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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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Yes, we're dreamers. We want it all. We want a peaceful world. We want an egalitarian world. We don't want war. We don't want capitalism. We want a decent society.
Howard Zinn
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When a nation issues ultimatums, it leaves no room for compromise and ensures that war will continue.
Howard Zinn
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You can't be neutral on a moving train.
Howard Zinn
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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.
Howard Zinn
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Right is not only to act within the law. It's to also act according to the conscience.
Howard Zinn
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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
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[...] There is none that disperses its control more complexly through the voting system, the work situation, the church, the family, the school, the mass media - none more successful in mollifying opposition with reforms, isolating people from one another, creating patriotic loyalty.
Howard Zinn
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Are terrorists going to be deterred - are terrorists going to be scared if we react violently? No. They love it. That's what they dote on. They dote on violence. They dote on having more reasons to commit more terrorism.
Howard Zinn
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The United States builds weapons presumably secretly, and then it sells them to other countries. So the whole business of secrecy is kind of a fake issue because hardly anything technological remains a secret for very long.
Howard Zinn