A Quote by Al Gore

Civil disobedience has an honourable history, and when the urgency and moral clarity cross a certain threshold, then I think that civil disobedience is quite understandable, and it has a role to play.

Al Gore

Quote Topics

History Certain Civil Civil Disobedience Clarity Cross Disobedience Moral Play Quite Role Then Think Threshold Understandable Urgency

Quote Author

Al Gore
American - President
Born: March 31, 1948

The state says: "Well, in order for it to be legitimate civil disobedience, you have to follow these rules." They put us in "free-speech zones"; they say you can only do it at this time, and in this way, and you can't interrupt the functioning of the government. They limit the impact that civil disobedience can achieve. We have to remember that civil disobedience must be disobedience if it's to be effective.

Edward Snowden

Civil disobedience is not something outside the realm of democracy. Democracy requires civil disobedience. Without civil disobedience democracy does not exist.

Howard Zinn

Civil disobedience presupposes willing obedience of our self-imposed rules, and without it civil disobedience would be a cruel joke.

Mahatma Gandhi

Yes, what has happened is we have moved from responding to these terrorist attacks as acts of civil disobedience to getting to the point after September 11 that we said, no, this is not just civil disobedience, this is an act of war.

Marsha Blackburn

If Snowden really claims that his actions amounted to genuine civil disobedience, he should go to some English language bookstore in Moscow and get a copy of Henry David Thoreau's 'Civil Disobedience'.

Michael Hayden

Active nonviolence is necessary for those who will offer civil disobedience but the will and proper training are enough for the people to co-operate with those who are chosen for civil disobedience.

Mahatma Gandhi

I think Iran is the kind of place where it's difficult to predict what's going to trigger structural change. It's hard to also predict the role that civil disobedience or mass protests could play.

Azadeh Moaveni

Before civil disobedience can be practised on a vast scale, people must learn the art of civil or voluntary obedience.

Mahatma Gandhi

In instances in history, civil disobedience has been appropriate and useful.

Philip Hart

It was civil disobedience that won them their civil rights.

Tariq Ali

The world - and America - has been defined by people who haven't necessarily abided by the laws and the rules. Civil disobedience is part of our nation's history and has redirected our country in many instances, from the feminist movement to the Civil Rights movement and beyond.

Rory Kennedy

Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.

Oscar Wilde

Thoreau points out clearly that civil disobedience gets its moral authority by the willingness to suffer the penalties from disobeying a law, even if you think that law is unjust.

Michael Hayden

Civil disobedience is - it's no fun.

Noam Chomsky

I don't advocate civil disobedience. I do advocate the role of an informed citizen to try to overturn when a court makes a mistake and gets an issue wrong.