Phil Ochs Quotes

If we had to kneel in order to live in peace, [ U.S. government] will have to kill us before.

There is now all this patriotic indignation about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Japanese expansionism in Asia. Yet not a word about American and European expansionism in the same area.... We must make a start. We must renounce war as an instrument of policy.... Even as I speak to you I may be guilty of what some men call treason.... You young men should refuse to take up arms. Young women tear down the patriotic posters. And all of you — young and old — put away your flags.

Civil disobedience is the core of American defiance against kings and emperors.

Civil disobedience can never be in general terms, such as for independence.

Civil disobedience is the inherent right of a citizen.

DISOBEDIENCE, n. The silver lining to the cloud of servitude.

What if when they called a war, no one went?

When you know how to use it, disobedience can be a virtue.

I saw courage both in the Vietnam War and in the struggle to stop it. I learned that patriotism includes protest, not just military service.

Better still - your history has shown how powerful a moral catharsis expressed through popular resistance to injustice can sometimes be; I have in mind the grassroots opposition to the Vietnam War.

If this be treason, make the most of it!

The soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse to sustain the unjust government which makes the war

Protest is when I say this does not please me. Resistance is when I ensure what does not please me occurs no more.

Civil disobedience is - it's no fun.

One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty.

Remember: Resist do not comply.

I quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, though I will still make use and get advantage of her as I can, as is usual in such cases.

Today, whether it is a student who holds a sit-in to get the army recruiters off his campus, or the mother of a dead soldier who refuses to leave the front gate of the president's ranch, we continue to be saved by brave people who risk ridicule and rejection but end up turning huge tides of public opinion in the direction of righteousness. We owe them enormous debts of gratitude. It is not easy to stand up for what is right, especially when everyone else is afraid to leave the comfortable path of conformity.

Civil disobedience is a preparation for mute suffering.

The privilege of resisting or disobeying a particular law or order accrues only to him who gives willing and unswerving obedience to the laws laid down for him.

Protest is when I say I don't like this. Resistance is when I put an end to what I don't like. Protest is when I say I refuse to go along with this anymore. Resistance is when I make sure everybody else stops going along too.

In a world built on violence, one must be a revolutionary before one can be a pacifist.

Civil disobedience is the assertion of a right which law should give but which it denies.

There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even tacitly take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.

To protest against injustice is the foundation of all our American democracy.