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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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We need to decide that we will not go to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children.
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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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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.
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If what your country is doing seems to you practically and morally wrong, is dissent the highest form of patriotism?
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Crosses and gallows - that deadly historic juxtaposition.
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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.
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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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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.
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I wonder how the foreign policies of the United States would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the world, at least in our minds, and thought of all children everywhere as our own.
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Education can, and should be, dangerous.
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Terrorism and war have something in common. They both involve the killing of innocent people to achieve what the killers believe is a good end.
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In between war and passivity, there are a thousand possibilities.
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Civil disobedience is not something outside the realm of democracy. Democracy requires civil disobedience. Without civil disobedience democracy does not exist.
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Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience.
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But by this time I was acutely conscious of the gap between law and justice. I knew that the letter of the law was not as important as who held the power in any real-life situation.
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When a nation issues ultimatums, it leaves no room for compromise and ensures that war will continue.
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But I suppose the most revolutionary act one can engage in is... to tell the truth.
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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.
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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.
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In the United States today, the Declaration of Independence hangs on schoolroom walls, but foreign policy follows Machiavelli.
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