Nonviolent Resistance Quotes

“The power of the people is much stronger than the people in power”
― Wael Ghonim

“Violence only attacks the body, but it is non-violence that has the power to influence the soul and reshape it towards a peaceful future.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Film Testament

“The most striking finding is that between 1900 and 2006, nonviolent resistance campaigns were nearly twice as likely to achieve full or partial success as their violent counterparts.”
― Erica Chenoweth;Maria J. Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict

“In our data set of 218 violent insurgencies since 1900, democratic governments succeeded only about 5 percent of violent insurgencies.”
― Erica Chenoweth;Maria J. Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict

“In countries in which violent insurgencies have been victorious, we find, however that the country is much less likely to become a peaceful democracy after the conflict has ended. On the other hand, in analogous countries where mass, nonviolent campaigns have occurred, we see a much higher rate of postconflict democracies and a much lower rate of relapse into civil war. This does not mean that there will not be any sharp political contention or democratic backsliding following a successful nonviolent transition. But it does mean that political contention is more likely to transpire through nonviolent channels.

Some may cite the American Revolution against the British as a counterexample to the above assertion. It should be remembered, however, that the armed insurgency against British forces, notably in the form of guerrilla warfare, was preceded by a decade of parallel institution building, nonviolent boycotts, civil disobedience, noncooperation, and other nation-building methods.”
― Erica Chenoweth;Maria J. Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict

“According to her [Erica Chenoweth's] data, “no campaigns failed once they’d achieved the active and sustained participation of just 3.5 percent of the population—and lots of them succeeded with far less than that.” Further, she notes, “Every single campaign that did surpass that 3.5 percent threshold was a nonviolent one. In fact, campaigns that relied solely on nonviolent methods were on average four times larger than the average violent campaign. And they were often much more representative in terms of gender, age, race, political party, class, and urban-rural distinctions.”
― Michael Shermer, The Moral Arc: How Science Makes Us Better People

“Non-violent resistance to evil is a quintessential element of the character of a real human being. If someone does wrong to me, I may be physically capable of breaking his jaw with one blow of my fist, but such violent reciprocation does not define the strength of my character as a real human being. If I succeed in resisting my limbic urge to do harm in return, then only can I be hailed as human being of real character.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Human Making is Our Mission: A Treatise on Parenting

“If there is real non-violence in us, there can be no war in the world.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Lives to Serve Before I Sleep

“You gave us a lawyer; we gave you back a Mahatma.”
― Ramachandra Guha, Gandhi Before India

“When, for decades, you have been able to make a man compromise his manhood by threatening him with a cruel and unjust punishment, and when suddenly he turns upon you and says: "Punish me. I do not deserve it. But because I do not deserve it, I will accept it so that the world will know that I am right and you are wrong," you hardly know what to do. You feel defeated and secretly ashamed. You know that this man is as good a man as you are; that from some mysterious source he has found the courage and the conviction to meet physical force with soul force.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can't Wait

“The alternative to violence is nonviolent resistance. This method was made famous in our generation by Mohandas K. Gandhi, who used it to free India from the domination of the British empire. Five points can be made concerning nonviolence as a method in bringing about better racial conditions.

First, this is not a method for cowards; it does resist. The nonviolent resister is just as strongly opposed to the evil against which he protests as the person who uses violence. His method is passive or nonaggressive in the sense that he is not physically aggressive toward his opponent. But his mind and emotions are always active, constantly seeking to persuade the opponent that he is mistaken. This method is passive physically but strongly active spiritually; it is nonaggressive physically but dynamically aggressive spiritually.

A second point is that nonviolent resistance does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding. The nonviolent resister must often express his protest through noncooperation or boycotts, but he realizes that noncooperation and boycotts are not ends themselves; they are merely means to awaken a sense of moral shame in the opponent. The end is redemption and reconciliation. The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community, while the aftermath of violence is tragic bitterness.

A third characteristic of this method is that the attack is directed against forces of evil rather than against persons who are caught in those forces. It is evil we are seeking to defeat, not just the persons victimized by evil. Those of us who struggle against racial injustice must come to see that the basic tension is not between races. As I like to say to the people in Montgomery, Alabama: ‘The tension in this city is not between white people and Negro people. The tension is at bottom between justice and injustice, between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. And if there is a victory it will be a victory not merely for fifty thousand Negroes, but a victory for justice and the forces of light. We are out to defeat injustice and not white persons who may happen to be unjust.’

A fourth point that must be brought out concerning nonviolent resistance is that it avoids not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. At the center of nonviolence stands the principle of love. In struggling for human dignity, the oppressed people of the world must not allow themselves to become bitter or indulge in hate campaigns. To retaliate with hate and bitterness would do nothing but intensify the hate in the world. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can be done only by projecting the ethics of love to the center of our lives.”
― Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“The development of a responsible and effective strategic plan for a nonviolent struggle depends upon the careful formulation and selection of the grand strategy, strategies, tactics, and methods.”
― Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy

“In times of conflict, make use of your love and compassion; not your guns and bullets.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, The Book of Maxims, Poems and Anecdotes

“There is no place for weapons in civilized revolution.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Martyr Meets World: To Solve The Hard Problem of Inhumanity

“Restrain the oppressor, don't harm them.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Heart Force One: Need No Gun to Defend Society

“Violence cannot be revolution. Either you can have violence or you can have revolution.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“If engaging in peaceful protests makes you a terrorist, then, yeah, he’s a terrorist.”
― Sol Luckman, Cali the Destroyer

“Jesus might have said to turn the other cheek, but I ain’t no Jesus – if they come for my loved ones, they won’t even have a head over their shoulders!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Girl Over God: The Novel

“Revolution is the foundation of civilization's evolution, but it must be rooted in gentleness, not cancellation.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Giants in Jeans: 100 Sonnets of United Earth

“Unarmed and unbending we'll conquer inhumanity.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Solo Standing on Guard: Life Before Law

“Nonviolence is the foundation of civilization, but first we must ask, what is nonviolence? No matter what my good friend Jesus said two thousand years ago, nonviolence doesn't mean nonresistance to evil, nonviolence means restraining evil without retaliating with further evil.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Şehit Sevda Society: Even in Death I Shall Live

“Love is the only answer, there is no question, but it is a lover's duty to stand up to oppression.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Giants in Jeans: 100 Sonnets of United Earth

“Raise your heart not your hand,
That is the only human way.
If you are forced to raise your hand,
Raise it only to shield, not to slay.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Amor Apocalypse: Canım Sana İhtiyacım

“Revolution comes from the backbone of a person, not the barrel of a gun.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Amantes Assemble: 100 Sonnets of Servant Sultans

“I hate guns and grenades,
Backbone is superior to all weaponry.
Reformer's CSF contains enough C4,
To blow up Alpha Centauri.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Esperanza Impossible: 100 Sonnets of Ethics, Engineering & Existence

“Revolution never happens because it is acceptable, it happens because everything else turns unacceptable. World War 3 has already begun, but unlike the previous times, it is not a war amongst nations, rather it's a war within nations between the forces of inclusion and reason, and the forces of separatism and superstition. And this World War will continue much longer than the previous two times, for this time, it's a war against the elements of inhumanity within our society, within ourselves, which unlike the previous times, cannot be treated by simply shooting down. Guns kill segregationists, not segregation.

So this time, and now on, the revolution and all
the future revolutions must continue without
resorting to violence. I am not talking about
simply nonviolence, I am talking about having
an actual and utter repulsiveness towards
violence. This is the fundamental requirement of
a civilized revolution. Show strength through
your resolve, not through the eagerness for
violence. If a terrorist has a gun to your head,
don't fight, stare down at them till they drop the
gun (metaphorically speaking).”
― Abhijit Naskar, Heart Force One: Need No Gun to Defend Society

“in old times, whole communities used the method of passive resistance to redress a grievance. The technique was to sit motionless in a public place, without food and exposed to the weather, until the ruler agreed to the people’s demands. Sometimes, when he was particularly tyrannical, his subjects would desert the land, leaving the ruler to live in loneliness and mend his ways. In ancient India it was considered the duty of a wise man to abandon the kingdom when all methods of weaning a king from bad ways had failed.”
― Elizabeth Harrower, The Watch Tower

“A bigot dying at a human's hand is far worse than a human dying at a bigot's hand.”
― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets

“Assassinating a bigot is easy,
Ending bigotry is the real objective.
Kill one chimp, ten more will take his place.
Render 'em irrelevant, 'n they're walking invalid.”
― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets