Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
One of the problems with dealing with anarchism is that there are many people whose ideas are anarchist, but who do not necessarily call themselves anarchists.
Howard Zinn
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
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
People
Dealing
Necessarily
Whose
Problems
Call
Problem
Anarchists
Ideas
Anarchism
Many
Anarchist
More quotes by 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
The future is an infinite succession of presents.
Howard Zinn
Before God and high heaven, is there a law for one man which is not a law for every other man?
Howard Zinn
War itself is the enemy of the human race.
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 am totally confident not that the world will get better, but that we should not give up the game before all the cards have been played. The metaphor is deliberate life is a gamble. Not to play is to foreclose any chance of winning. To play, to act, is to create at least a possibility of changing the world.
Howard Zinn
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
Throughout American history, the political leaders have always exhorted the American people to be nice and quiet and leave things to them. But when very serious evils confronted the American people, they had to go beyond the Congressmen and Senators, and they had to commit civil disobedience and they had even to break the law.
Howard Zinn
Each situation has to be evaluated separately, for all are different. In general, I believe in non-violent direct action, which involve organizing large numbers of people, whereas too often violent uprisings are the product of a small group. If enough people are organized, violence can be minimized in bringing about social change.
Howard Zinn
While some multimillionaires started in poverty, most did not. A study of the origins of 303 textile, railroad and steel executives of the 1870s showed that 90 percent came from middle- or upper-class families. The Horatio Alger stories of rags to riches were true for a few men, but mostly a myth, and a useful myth for control.
Howard Zinn
When a nation issues ultimatums, it leaves no room for compromise and ensures that war will continue.
Howard Zinn
People of the United States have to really consider whether they want to be an empire. Sweden is not worried about terrorism. New Zealand is not worried about terrorism. Holland is not worried about terrorism. Why not be a modest little country without all of these enormous ambitions?
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
We better rethink the position of the United States in the world and whether we want to be an empire. Being an empire puts all of us in jeopardy. The American Empire, while it was just wreaking havoc on other nations, didn't bother us.
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
In the United States today, the Declaration of Independence hangs on schoolroom walls, but foreign policy follows Machiavelli.
Howard Zinn
People who have no respect for human life or for freedom or justice have taken over this beautiful country of ours. It will be up to the American people to take it back.
Howard Zinn
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
Right is not only to act within the law. It's to also act according to the conscience.
Howard Zinn
If what your country is doing seems to you practically and morally wrong, is dissent the highest form of patriotism?
Howard Zinn