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Radicals must be resilient, adaptable to shifting political circumstances, and sensitive enough to the process of action and reaction to avoid being trapped by their own tactics and forced to travel a road not of their choosing.

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
Action
Reactions
Adaptable
Political
Sensitive
Resilient
Enough
Radical
Tactics
Must
Avoid
Shifting
Road
Choosing
Travel
Trapped
Circumstances
Reaction
Process
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Radicals

More quotes by Saul Alinsky

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The only nonpartisan people are those who are dead.
Saul Alinsky
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As an organizer I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be. That we accept the world as it is does not in any sense weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be - it is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be.
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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Liberals like people with their heads, radicals like people with both their heads and their hearts.
Saul Alinsky
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Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.
Saul Alinsky
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Dogma, Whatever Form It Takes, Is The Ultimate Enemy Of Human Freedom.
Saul Alinsky
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The greatest enemy of individual freedom is the individual himself.
Saul Alinsky
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A racially integrated community is a chronological term timed from the entrance of the first black family to the exit of the last white family.
Saul Alinsky
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An organizer working in and for an open society is in an ideological dilemma to begin with, he does not have a fixed truth - truth to him is relative and changing everything to him is relative and changing.... To the extent that he is free from the shackles of dogma, he can respond to the realities of the widely different situations.
Saul Alinsky
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Once you accept your own death, all of a sudden you're free to live. You no longer care about your reputation. You no longer care except so far as your life can be used tactically to promote a cause you believe in.
Saul Alinsky
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A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.
Saul Alinsky
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The threat is generally more terrifying than the thing itself.
Saul Alinsky
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In a fight almost anything goes. It almost reaches the point where you stop to apologize if a chance blow lands above the belt.
Saul Alinsky
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They have the guns and therefore we are for peace and for reformation through the ballot. When we have the guns then it will be through the bullet.
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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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 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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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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Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.
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