Sissela Bok Quotes

Civil disobedience is the only nonviolent escape from the soul-destroying heat of violence.

Nonviolence is the rock on which the whole structure of non-co-operation is built.

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

It is our hope that when people read "March" - Book One, Book Two, and Book Three - that they will understand that another generation of people, especially young people, were deeply inspired by the work of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr. and many others.

Sometimes you must live in a violent world in order to get greater justice.

Martin [Luther King] wasn't one to buck forces too much.

Nonviolence is really tough. You don't practice nonviolence at conferences; you practice it on picket-lines.

I have been practicing, with scientific precision, nonviolence and its possibilities for an unbroken period of over fifty years.

Civil disobedience does not admit of any violence or countenancing of violence directly or indirectly.

I'm not sure I'm trying to communicate a message. I'm just trying to be part of the movement away from the unacceptable present.

Solidarity is an attitude of resistance, I suppose, or it should be.

It's funny how most activists are pacifists.

You don't have a peaceful revolution. You don't have a turn-the-cheek revolution. There's no such thing as a nonviolent revolution.

Don't stand back with your arms folded; step forward... There is hope and light to resist injustice and promote peace without violence.

Take away the violence and who will hear the men of peace?

Indifference is harder to fight than hostility, and there is nothing that kills an agitation like having everybody admit that it is fundamentally right.

Christian nonviolence must be embodied in a community that is an alternative to the world's violence.

History dictates that unresponsive governments force ordinary people to do extraordinary things.

The people in power will not disappear voluntarily, giving flowers to the cops just isn't going to work. This thinking is fostered by the establishment; they like nothing better than love and nonviolence.

If a thousand [citizens] were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible.

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

Popular struggles to bring about a freer and more just society have been resisted by violence and repression, and massive efforts to control opinion and attitudes. Over time, however, they have met with considerable success, even though there is a long way to go, and there is often regression.

History doesn't give credence for resorting to violence to have your voice heard.

Every successful social movement in this country's history has used disruption as a strategy to fight for social change. Whether it was the Boston Tea Party to the sit-ins at lunch counters throughout the South, no change has been won without disruptive action.

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