"Nonviolent forms of resistance can and must be aggressively pursued. A practice of aggressive nonviolence is, therefore, not a contradiction in terms. Mahatma Gandhi insisted that ', or “soul force,” his name for a practice and politics of nonviolence, is a nonviolent force, one that consists at once of an “insistence on truth … that arms the votary with matchless power.” To understand this force or strength, there can be no simple reduction to physical strength. At the same time, “soul force” takes an embodied form. The practice of “going limp” before political power is, on the one hand, a passive posture, and is thought to belong to the tradition of passive resistance; at the same time, it is a deliberate way of exposing the body to police power, of entering the field of violence, and of exercising an adamant and embodied form of political agency. It requires suffering, yes, but for the purposes of transforming both oneself and social reality."
Nonviolence

January 1, 1970

Quote Details

Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Added on April 10, 2026
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English

Sources

Judith Butler,

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nonviolence