Woody Guthrie Quotes

The best hope to smash Fascism in the world.

I fight against Fascism; that is my trade.

The white man made the mistake of letting me read his history books. He made the mistake of teaching me that Patrick Henry was a patriot and George Washington - wasn't nothing non-violent about old Pat or George Washington.

My fellow revolutionaries, liberation is a noble cause. We must fight to obtain it.

The people's flag is deepest red; It shrouded oft our martyred dead .... Then raise the scarlet standard high. Within its shade we'll live or die. Tho' cowards flinch and traitors sneer, We'll keep the red flag flying here.

I can give you nothing but my life. I wish that my last breath might be of use to my fellow citizens and that my head'[after she was guillotined], carried through Paris, might be a signal to rally all the friends of justice …. I have shown you the way. You know your enemies. Arise, march, and strike!

Neither God, nor angels, or just men, command you to suffer for a single moment. Therefore it is your solemn and imperative duty to use every means, both moral, intellectual, and physical, that promise success .... Brethren, arise, arise! Strike for your lives and liberties.... Let your motto be resistance, resistance, resistance!

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

At the end of the day, violence was the only weapon that would destroy apartheid.

Government violence can only do one thing and that is to breed counter-violence.

I’ll take my short revolver And my bandolier of lead, And live or die I can but try To avenge my country’s dead …. I’ve always hated slavery Since the day that I was born So I’m of to join the IRA And I’m off tomorrow morn

We know what the birth of a revolution looks like: A student stands before a tank. A fruit seller sets himself on fire. A line of monks link arms in a human chain. Crowds surge, soldiers fire, gusts of rage pull down the monuments of tyrants, and maybe, sometimes, justice rises from the flames.

No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.

I do not hesitate one second to state clearly and unmistakably: I belong to the American resistance movement which fights against American imperialism, just as the resistance movement fought against Hitler.

If you strike at, imprison, or kill us, out of our prisons or graves we will still evoke a spirit that will thwart you, and perhaps, raise a force that will destroy you! We defy you! Do your worst!

Despair and frustration will not shake our belief that the resistance is the only way of liberation.

The walls, the bars, the guns and the guards can never encircle or hold down the idea of the people.

The last resort of kings, the cannonball. The last resort of the people, the paving stone.

People have a right to violence, to rebel, to fight back.

An oppressed people are authorized whenever they can to rise and break their fetters.

Our constancy, same might call it our madness, was necessary to wear down the oppressive forces of the old democracy which, in Spain, was a hundred years behind the times.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

It is difficult to violently suppress people in the long run, as the example of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries has shown.

An oppressed people will always rise.

a government which goes counter to the will of the nation must be overthrown at once... It is dangerous to drive the people to despair and force them to demand by violence that which they as yet seek only by constitutional means.