Derrick Jensen Quotes

I think we're at a time where people just want to join together and cause change. People don't want to live like this any more.

You cannot do anything without rousing the masses to action.

If the government or the parties won't address our needs, we will. It's about direct action, even civil disobedience.

Pick a movement, pick a revolution and join it.

Nothing I study makes me think we will survive this century. And yet why am I so happy? Because it's not too late. Just get off your ass and work for revolution.

There never was a social change in America without angry people at the heart.

Progressive change in this country has never come from above.

Social change without music would be void of soul. Nonviolence without music, meditation, action, and a willingness to take risks probably doesn't exist.

The power of a movement lies in the fact that it can indeed change the habits of people. This change is not the result of force but of dedication, of moral persuasion.

When you look at the times in history when change was brought about, there were two factors: crisis and leadership.

Change never comes from the White House. It comes from your house and my house.

Only force would produce social change.

Together, together, my friends, we have begun a political revolution to transform America, and that revolution, our revolution, continues!

My presence is to instigate and incite the people for any change they want, and for not having a change that they don't wish to do.

The first step in community organization is community disorganization.

Change comes when people are willing to commit acts of peaceful civil disobedience.

Especially in the sphere of social activism, I think we tend to unwittingly conceptualize progress or revolution as black and white and having a clear beginning and end.

Sometimes things need to get really bad before they can ever get better. Really bad can become untenable if enough people get sick of it. That was a big thing about why I ended up taking part in that rally [against police brutality] and ended up voicing my opinion and declaring what side I was standing on.

I do see myself as aiming to foment some kind of revolution.

In recent years, many seem to have spent their lives protesting. Perhaps they have felt to do this because they have felt repressed or wished to bring about change or have acted out of selfish reasons, thinking that if they tore the house down they might end up with a shingle.

I don't accept armed struggle. Maybe it was the way in the '50s and '60s, but we want a democratic revolution.

The great news is that that sort of group of people and that sort of sensibility is beginning to become more active again. And I think partly it just has to do with the time. It has to do with the culture of resistance. The necessity is for us to pull together and to speak up and to make work and be visible.

It's important that people press from the outside. It's important that people are able to make change from the inside. Both of those things are important. Protest is fundamentally a political act.

Revolution means turning the wheel.

Disobedience is the vehicle of progress.