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Dissent Quotes - page 3
The fault I find with most American newspapers is not the absence of dissent. it is the absence of news. With a dozen or so honorable exceptions, most American newspapers carry very little news. Their main concern is advertising.
I. F. Stone
The Army of the Revolution is recruited by the Soldiers of Despair. Therefore, down with any Scheme which gives men Hope. In so far as it succeeds it curtails our recruiting ground and reinforces the ranks of our Enemies. Such opposition is to be counted upon, and to be utilised as the best of all tributes to the value of our work. Those who thus count upon violence and bloodshed are too few to hinder, and their opposition will merely add to the momentum with which I hope and believe this Scheme will ultimately be enabled to surmount all dissent, and achieve, with the blessing of God, that measure of success with which I verily believe it to be charged.
William Booth
All the usual rules of uprising realpolitik still apply, especially that concerning the peculiar of dialectic of dissent which-simply stated-dictates that in all but the most dedicatedly repressive hegemonies, if in a sizable population there are one hundred rebels, all of whom are then rounded up and killed, the number of rebels present at the end of the day is not zero, and not even one hundred, but two hundred or three hundred or more; an equation based on human nature which seem often to baffle the military and political mind.
Iain Banks
...the totalitarian states, whether of the fascist or the communist persuasion, are more than superficially alike as dictatorships, in the suppression of dissent, and in operating planned and directed economies. They are profoundly alike.
Walter Lippmann
Dissent was not a crime but the opposition must appreciate the good actions of the government. Politicians and politics without principles is poison. Casteism, regional chauvinism, communalism and the custom of dowry were the greatest enemy of welfare and progress of the country.
Zail Singh
The regime maintains its suffocating grip over the citizens by using brute force and repression of dissent. Gruesome acts of public executions are barbaric methods and chilling reminders of the fate of dissenters in Iran. Through fear and humiliation, the regime commands submission. Public stoning of women and the execution of underage youth are revolting reminders of the regime's callous disregard for human life, dignity and civility.
Reza Pahlavi
If we confuse dissent with disloyalty - if we deny the right of the individual to be wrong, unpopular, eccentric or unorthodox - if we deny the essence of racial equality then hundreds of millions in Asia and Africa who are shopping about for a new allegiance will conclude that we are concerned to defend a myth and our present privileged status. Every act that denies or limits the freedom of the individual in this country costs us the ... confidence of men and women who aspire to that freedom and independence of which we speak and for which our ancestors fought.
Edward R. Murrow
[T]he enunciation of a thought in advance of the moment provokes dissent or evokes approval, and thus promotes action. The thought may be unwise; but it is only by discussion, checked by experience, that its value can be determined.
John Tyndall
In contrast, fear societies are societies in which dissent is banned.
Natan Sharansky
People may believe that there can be a society where dissent is not permitted, but which is nonetheless not a fear society because everyone agrees with one another and therefore no one wants to dissent.
Natan Sharansky
Free societies are societies in which the right of dissent is protected.
Natan Sharansky
Loyalty... is a realization that America was born of revolt, flourished in dissent, became great through experimentation.
Henry Steele Commager
As many truths as men. Ocassionally, I glimpse a truer Truth, hiding in imperfect simulacrums of itself, but as I approach, it bestirs itself & moves deeper into the thorny swamp of dissent.
David Mitchell (author)
With a lot of blacks, there's quite a bit of resentment along with their dissent, and possibly rightfully so. But we can't all of a sudden get down on our knees and turn everything over to the leadership of the blacks. I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility. I don't believe in giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people.
John Wayne
It's so easy for propaganda to work, and dissent to be mocked.
Harold Pinter
For good people to do evil doesn't require only religion, or even any religion, but simply one of its key elements: belief without evidence-in other words, faith. And that kind of faith is seen not just in religion, but in any authoritarian ideology that puts dogma above truth and frowns on dissent.
Jerry Coyne
Free societies... are societies in motion, and with motion comes tension, dissent, friction. Free people strike sparks, and those sparks are the best evidence of freedom's existence.
Salman Rushdie
Thought that is silenced is always rebellious. Majorities, of course, are often mistaken. This is why the silencing of minorities is necessarily dangerous. Criticism and dissent are the indispensable antidote to major delusions.
Alan Barth
The usual thing - the statistically normal thing - is for the speaker to tell the graduating class that they are going out into a world torn by dissent, racked by problems of unprecedented knottiness and difficulty, and headed for the abyss of destruction unless the graduating class shoulders its burden and does something splendid to put everything right. The speaker generally admits that he is at the end of his tether: he is old, and broken on the wheel of Fate; his decrepitude and his wounds have been received in this great battle with the world's problems. Nothing - absolutely nothing - is to be expected of him in the future. From his failing hands he throws the torch; he plants the task of setting the world right square on the graduating class. He says that he does it with confidence. But he is usually so gloomy that one wonders how much his confidence is worth. Sometimes one gets the impression that immediately after Convocation he is going home to die.
Robertson Davies
A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority.
Eric Hoffer
They are arrayed against every principle for which we stand. So when the Soviet leaders jail a writer, or a priest, or a doctor or a worker, for the crime of speaking freely, it is not only for humanitarian reasons that we should be concerned. For these acts reveal a regime that is afraid of truth and liberty; it dare not allow its people to enjoy the freedoms we take for granted, and a nation that denies those freedoms to its own people will have few scruples in denying them to others. If detente is to progress then it ought to mean that the Soviet authorities relax their ruthless opposition to all forms and expressions of dissent.
Margaret Thatcher
To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.
Barack Obama
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