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Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.

Saul Alinsky

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Saul Alinsky
Age: 63 †
Born: 1909
Born: January 30
Died: 1972
Died: June 12
Activist
Human Rights Activist
Sociologist
Trade Unionist
Writer
Chicago
Illinois
Saul David Alinsky
Enemy
Live
Book
Make
Rules

More quotes by Saul Alinsky

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I prize my own independence too much. And philosophically, I could never accept any rigid dogma or ideology, whether it's Christianity or Marxism…The greatest crimes in history have been perpetrated by such religious and political and racial fanatics, from the persecutions of the Inquisition on down to Communist purges and Nazi genocide.
Saul Alinsky
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Humor is essential to a successful tactician, for the most potent weapons known to mankind are satire and ridicule.
Saul Alinsky
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One’s concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one’s personal interest in the issue.
Saul Alinsky
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The human spirit glows from that small inner light of doubt whether we are right, while those who believe with certainty that they possess the right are dark inside and darken the world outside with cruelty, pain, and injustice.
Saul Alinsky
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A free and open society is an ongoing conflict, interrupted periodically by compromises.
Saul Alinsky
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Democracy is alive, and like any other living thing it either flourishes and grows or withers and dies. There is no in-between. It is freedom and life or dictatorship and death.
Saul Alinsky
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If people don't think they have the power to solve their problems, they won't even think about how to solve them.
Saul Alinsky
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Human beings do not like to look squarely into the face of tragedy. Gloom is unpopular.
Saul Alinsky
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You cannot meet today's crisis tomorrow.
Saul Alinsky
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Our world has always had two kinds of changers, the social changers and the money changers.
Saul Alinsky
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The prerequisite for an ideology is possession of a basic truth.
Saul Alinsky
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The only people who become disillusioned are people who have illusions.
Saul Alinsky
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The very first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom -- Lucifer.
Saul Alinsky
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The most unethical of all means is the non-use of any means.
Saul Alinsky
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The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.
Saul Alinsky
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Tactics mean doing what you can with what you have.
Saul Alinsky
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Do one of three things. One, go find a wailing wall and feel sorry for yourselves. Two, go psycho and start bombing - but this will only swing people to the right. Three, learn a lesson. Go home, organize, build power and at the next convention, you be the delegates.
Saul Alinsky
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The classic statement on polarization comes from Christ: 'He that is not with me is against me.' (Luke 11:23) He allowed no middle ground to the moneychangers in the Temple. One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other.
Saul Alinsky
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The cry of the Have-Nots has never been give us our hearts, but always get off our backs they ask not for love but for breathing space.
Saul Alinsky
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A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.
Saul Alinsky