Top 315 Dissent Quotes & Sayings

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty.

To oppose the policies of a government does not mean you are against the country or the people that the government supposedly represents. Such opposition should be called what it really is: democracy, or democratic dissent, or having a critical perspective about what your leaders are doing. Either we have the right to democratic dissent and criticism of these policies or we all lie down and let the leader, the Fuhrer, do what is best, while we follow uncritically, and obey whatever he commands. That's just what the Germans did with Hitler, and look where it got them.

Well, dissent is the tradition in America, and I've been on the side of dissent a good bit of my career, particularly in the last many years of the Republican Congress.

Discussion in America means dissent.

I tell myself I use art to promote dissent, but maybe I am just using dissent to promote my art. I plead not guilty to selling out. But I plead it from a bigger house than I used to live in.

I wish I could say that racism and prejudice were only distant memories... We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the fear, the hatred and the mistrust... We must dissent because America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better.

Dissent is as American as cherry pie.

Once you start choking the space for dissent in a democracy, people feel pushed to the wall and then it leads to further dissent and alienation.

The rightful claim to dissent is an existential right of the individual.

Democratic dissent is not disloyalty, it is a positive civic duty.

The fact is that Democrats cannot stand dissent.

There's a tradition in the history of dissent in authoritarian countries of a certain kind of dissident, and their form of dissent is to live their lives as normally as possible.

It's so easy for propaganda to work, and dissent to be mocked.

It is dissent from government policies which defines the true Patriot

Criticism and dissent are the indispensable antidote to major delusions.

Dissent in art is a fundamental right. But if it is dissent about a book, a piece of art, and if you don't like it, you have the right to express your views outside the theatre, but you cannot create a law and order situation. Then the state has to step in.

The only thing worth globalizing is dissent.

A good, hard-hitting dissent keeps you honest.

Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent, and debate.

Dissent is not sacred; the right of dissent is.

Dissent without action is consent.

Dissent is what rescues democracy from a quiet death behind closed doors.

The important thing about groupthink is that it works not so much by censoring dissent as by making dissent seem somehow improbable.

We may be so eager to protect the right to dissent that we lose sight of the difference between dissent and subversion.

Comedy as dissent or any art form as dissent is going to be our last safety valve.

Dissent and dissenters have no monopoly on freedom. They must tolerate opposition. They must accept dissent from their dissent.

In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith.

Disagreement produces debate but dissent produces dissension. Dissent (which come from the Latin, dis and sentire) means originally to feel apart from others. People who disagree have an argument, but people who dissent have a quarrel. People may disagree and both may count themselves in the majority. But a person who dissents is by definition in a minority. A liberal society thrives on disagreement but is killed by dissension. Disagreement is the life blood of democracy, dissension is its cancer.

[Vladimir] Putin is an enemy of political dissent. The U.S. celebrates political dissent and the right for people to argue free from violence about places where our ideas are in conflict.

Passionate dissent from the will of the multitude should be respected, not derided.

During President George W. Bush's two terms, you couldn't drive far without seeing a particular bumper sticker: Dissent is the highest form of patriotism. Now that Democrats control the White House and Congress, the left treats dissent as the lowest form of treason.

Even when alternative views are clearly wrong, being exposed to them still expands our creative potential. In a way, the power of dissent is the power of surprise. After hearing someone shout out an errant answer, we work to understand it, which causes us to reassess our initial assumptions and try out new perspectives. “Authentic dissent can be difficult, but it’s always invigorating,” Nemeth says. “It wakes us right up.”

Truth affirms freedom of speech. Putin is no friend of reli - freedom of speech. Putin is an enemy of freedom of religion. The U.S. celebrates freedom of religion. Putin is an enemy of the free press. The U.S. celebrates free press. Putin is an enemy of political dissent. The U.S. celebrates political dissent and the right for people to argue free from violence about places or ideas that are in conflict.

There is no democracy without dissent.

We must dissent from the fear.

Locking up dissenters does not reduce dissent - it fosters it.

Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.

I can't wait until dissent is patriotic again.

The university is the last remaining platform for national dissent.

The most un-American thing you can do is to stifle dissent

Silence - not dissent - is the one answer that leaders should refuse to accept.

It's simply not bias for a judge to explain her reasoning in a dissent.

May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.

In America, religious dissent is as vital as it is elusive. Like the secretions of the pituitary, the juices of dissent are essential to ongoing life even if we do not always know precisely how, when or where they perform their tasks, and the not knowing - the flimsy, filmy elusiveness - is supremely characteristic of America's expressions of religious dissent. For in the United States no stalwart orthodoxy stands ever ready to parry the sharp thrust or clever feints of dissent.

The fact that there are singer-songwriters dealing with substantive issues is encouraging. It's important for young people to perceive that there are acceptable avenues of dissent, because we live in a world where dissent is hard-pressed; treated as if it were unpatriotic. I've always liked the concept of the loyal opposition. It allows for dissent to be a respectable part of the whole.

When a government is in fear of dissent from its own citizens, and when its reaction is to shut out that dissent, we should all worry.

I understand the principles of dissent in parliament.

You must know the difference between dissent from the Iraq war and the war on terror and undermining it. And any American that undermines that war, with our soldiers in the field, or undermines the war on terror, with 3,000 dead on 9/11, is a traitor. Everybody got it? Dissent, fine; undermining, you're a traitor. Got it? So, all those clowns over at the liberal radio network, we could incarcerate them immediately. Will you have that done, please? Send over the FBI and just put them in chains, because they, you know, they're undermining everything and they don't care, couldn't care less.

It would be a tragedy for democracy if dissent goes away.

People may believe that there can be a society where dissent is not permitted, but which is nonetheless not a fear society because everyone agrees with one another and therefore no one wants to dissent.

I think both comedy and dissent are liberating, for the listener as well!

Bring it on. Dissent is central to any democracy.

The highest form of patriotism is dissent.

Dissent is the mark of freedom.

Dissent is difficult. It can constitute a real dilemma for the person who disagrees.

We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the fear, the hatred and the mistrust. We must dissent from a nation that has buried its head in the sand, waiting in vain for the needs of its poor, its elderly, and its sick to disappear and just blow away. We must dissent from a government that has left its young without jobs, education or hope. We must dissent from the poverty of vision and the absence of moral leadership. We must dissent because America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better.

Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.

I heard that Commentary and Dissent had merged and formed Dysenery.

An effort to declare the ban on contraception ‘infallible’ would have the immediate effect of focusing Catholic dissent on the doctrine of infallibility itself. . . . A storm of dissent, and even ridicule, directed at infallibility itself would ensue from such a declaration.

Truth is dissent, where all power resides in the Big Lie.