A Quote by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Mass civil disobedience can use rage as a constructive and creative force.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Quote Topics

Civil Civil Disobedience Constructive Creative Disobedience Force Mass Rage Use

Quote Author

Martin Luther King, Jr.
American - Leader
January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968

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

Satyagraha and civil disobedience and fasts have nothing in common with the use of force, veiled or open.

Mahatma Gandhi

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

Howard Zinn

Non-co-operation and civil disobedience in terms of Swaraj are not to be thought of without substantial constructive effort.

Mahatma Gandhi

Mass civil disobedience was for the attainment of independence.

Mahatma Gandhi

In placing civil disobedience before constructive work I was wrong and I did not profit by the Himalayan blunder that I had committed.

Mahatma Gandhi

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

Mahatma Gandhi

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

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

Mass civil disobedience is like an earthquake, a sort of general upheaval on the political plane.

Mahatma Gandhi

It is purposeless to tell Negroes they should not be enraged when they should be. Indeed, they will be mentally healthier if they do not suppress rage, but vent it constructively and use its energy peacefully but forcefully to cripple the operations of an oppressive society. Civil disobedience can utilize the militance wasted in riots to seize clothes or groceries many do not even want.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The libertarian approach is a very symmetrical one: the non-aggression principle does not rule out force, but only the initiation of force. In other words, you are permitted to use force only in response to some else's use of force. If they do not use force you may not use force yourself. There is a symmetry here: force for force, but no force if no force was used.

Stephan Kinsella

The act of civil disobedience is the act of taking our anger and turning it into sacred rage. It is a personal and collective gesture of resistance and insistance.

Terry Tempest Williams

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

If there is no willingness to use force to defend civil society, it's civil society that goes away, not force.