Social Activists

"The Promised Land always lies on the other side of a wilderness."

"A man must not swallow more beliefs than he can digest."

"The mathematician has reached the highest rung on the ladder of human thought."

"In philosophy, it is not the attainment of the goal that matters, it is the things that are met with by the way."

"Thinking in its lower grades is comparable to paper money, and in its higher forms it is a kind of poetry."

"The place where optimism most flourishes is the lunatic asylum."

"Dancing is the loftiest, the most moving, the most beautiful of the arts, because it is no mere translation or abstraction from life; it is life itself."

"The art of dancing stands at the source of all the arts that express themselves first in the human person. The art of building, or architecture, is the beginning of all the arts that lie outside the person; and in the end they unite."

"The greatest task before civilization at present is to make machines what they ought to be, the slaves, instead of the masters of men."

"To be a leader of men one must turn one's back on men."

"All civilization has from time to time become a thin crust over a volcano of revolution."

"The byproduct is sometimes more valuable than the product."

"One can know nothing of giving aught that is worthy to give unless one also knows how to take."

"The family only represents one aspect, however important an aspect, of a human being's functions and activities...A life is beautiful and ideal, or the reverse, only when we have taken into our consideration the social as well as the family relationship."

"It is curious how there seems to be an instinctive disgust in Man for his nearest ancestors and relations. If only Darwin could conscientiously have traced man back to the Elephant or the Lion or the Antelope, how much ridicule and prejudice would have been spared to the doctrine of Evolution."

"The text of the Bible is but a feeble symbol of the Revelation held in the text of Men and Women."

"The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence, from Jerusalem, of a lunatic asylum."

"Had there been a lunatic asylum in the suburbs of Jerusalem, Jesus Christ would infallibly have been shut up in it at the outset of his public career. That interview with Satan on the pinnacle of the Temple would alone have damned him, and everything that happened after could but have confirmed the diagnosis."

"There has never been any country at every moment so virtuous and so wise that it has not sometimes needed to be saved from itself."

""Charm"—which means the power to effect work without employing brute force—is indispensable to women. Charm is a woman's strength just as strength is a man's charm."

"If men and women are to understand each other, to enter into each other's nature with mutual sympathy, and to become capable of genuine comradeship, the foundation must be laid in youth."

"Every artist writes his own autobiography."

"'Homosexual' is a barbarously hybrid word, and I claim no responsibility for it."

"Oh judge! Your damn laws! The good people don't need them, and the bad people don't obey them."

"I am writing this preliminary statement of my reasons for not paying taxes ahead of time, as I was recently informed by your office that I would be imprisoned for my constant refusal to pay taxes. Upon my arrest I will give you the correct report of my earnings to date in 1948. My belief in the iniquity of government, which exists primarily to wage war, has been stated this last six years in my statement to your department when I refused to pay any tax, and also in articles in the Catholic Worker."

"Too many of us dissipate our energy by being "for all good causes," attending meetings and passing resolutions, organizing and presenting petitions — all this effort to change others, when if we really got down to it we could use this energy to change ourselves… We become tired radicals because we use our weakest weapon: the ballot box, where we are always outnumbered, and refuse to use our strongest weapon: spiritual power."

"We really can’t change the world. We really can’t change other people! The best we can do is to start a few thinking here and there. The best way to do this, if we are sincere, is to change ourselves!"

"The only revolution worthwhile was the one-man revolution within the heart. Each one could make this by himself and not need to wait on a majority."

"At times those who do not want to have their inconsistencies pointed out say in a super-sweet voice to me "Judge not, lest ye be judged." I reply "O.K., judge me, then.""

"When I was working a man asked me "Why does a fellow like you, with an education, and who has been all over the country, end up in this out-of-the-way place working for very little on a farm?" I explained that all people who had good jobs in factories, etc. had a withholding tax for war taken from their pay, and that people who worked on farms had no tax taken from their pay. I told him that I refused to pay taxes. He was a returned soldier and said that he did not like war either, but what could a fellow do about it? I replied that we each did what we really wanted to."

"A Christian Anarchist does not depend on bullets or ballots to achieve his ideal; he achieves that ideal daily by the One Man Revolution with which he faces a decadent, confused and dying world."

"Despite the popular idea of anarchists as violent men, Anarchism is the one non-violent social philosophy.… The function of the Anarchist is two-fold. By daily courage in non-cooperation with the tyrannical forces of the State and the Church, he helps to tear down present society; the Anarchist by daily cooperation with his fellows in overcoming evil with good-will and solidarity builds toward the anarchistic commonwealth which is formed by voluntary action with the right of secession."

"Love without courage and wisdom is sentimentality, as with the ordinary church member. Courage without love and wisdom is foolhardiness, as with the ordinary soldier. Wisdom without love and courage is cowardice, as with the ordinary intellectual. Therefore one with love, courage, and wisdom is one in a million who moves the world, as with Jesus, Buddha, and Gandhi."

"The dictionary definition of a Christian is one who follows Christ; kind, kindly, Christ-like. Anarchism is voluntary cooperation for good, with the right of secession. A Christian anarchist is therefore one who turns the other cheek, overturns the tables of the moneychangers, and does not need a cop to tell him how to behave. A Christian anarchist does not depend upon bullets or ballots to achieve his ideal; he achieves that ideal daily by the One-Man Revolution with which he faces a decadent, confused, and dying world."

"I love my enemies, but am hell on my friends."

"An anarchist is someone who doesn't need a cop to make him behave."

"A pacifist between wars is like a vegetarian between meals."

"It's perhaps fitting that I write this introduction in jail."

"Abbie Hoffman was one of the first Americans to fully appreciate the possibilities and the importance of living in what was becoming a media age. He was the New Left’s clown, not because he was clownish, but because in a very calculated way he understood that the New Left was in need of a clown, that a clown could publicize their issues, that a clown was not ignored. Above all, Abbie Hoffman did not want to be ignored. And like all good clowns, he was very funny. He was a master of the put-on, and those who understood put-ons laughed while the others joined the television cameras waiting when he promised to spin and levitate the Pentagon, not understanding why he was not in the least bit embarrassed, or the slightest bit disappointed, when he failed to do so."

"Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger."

"Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit. When all today's isms have become yesterday's ancient philosophy, there will still be reactionaries and there will still be revolutionaries. No amount of rationalization can avoid the moment of choice each of us brings to our situation here on the planet. I still believe in the fundamental injustice of the profit system and do not accept the proposition there will be rich and poor for all eternity."

"There is absolutely no greater high than challenging the power structure as a nobody, giving it your all, and winning. I think I've learned that lesson twice now. The essence of successful revolution, be it for an individual, a community of individuals, or a nation, depends on accepting that challenge."

"Free speech is the right to shout "Theater!" in a crowded fire."

"A modern revolutionary group heads for the television station, not the factory. It concentrates its energy on infiltrating and changing the image system."

"My critique of democracy begins and ends with this point. Kids must be educated to disrespect authority or else democracy is a farce."

"It's ridiculous to talk about a revolution without a few words on guns. If you haven't been in the army or done some hunting, you probably have a built in fear against guns that can only be overcome by familiarizing yourself with them."

"Amerika is just another Latin dictatorship. Those who have doubts should try the minimal experience of organizing a large rock festival in their state, sleeping on some beach in the summer or wearing a flag shirt. Ask the blacks what it's been like living under racism and you'll get a taste of the future we face. As the repression increases so will the underground - deadly groups of stoned revolutionaries sneaking around at night and balling all day."

"Dealing, although dangerous, is a tax-free way of surviving even though it borders on work."

"Those who say a demonstration should be concerned with education rather than theater don't understand either and will never organize a successful demonstration, or for that matter, a successful revolution."

"Usually when you ask somebody in college why they are there, they'll tell you it's to get an education. The truth of it is, they are there to get the degree so that they can get ahead in the rat race. Too many college radicals are two-timing punks."