Punishment cannot heal spirits, can only break them.
BARBARA DEMINGPeople may find it more comfortable to listen to us if we equivocate, but in the long run only words that discomfort them are going to change our situation.
More Barbara Deming Quotes
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A liberation movement that is nonviolent sets the oppressor free as well as the oppressed.
BARBARA DEMING -
People may find it more comfortable to listen to us if we equivocate, but in the long run only words that discomfort them are going to change our situation.
BARBARA DEMING -
Gandhi once declared that it was his wife who unwittingly taught him the effectiveness of nonviolence. Who better than women should know that battles can be won without resort to physical strength? Who better than we should know all the power that resides in noncooperation?
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The free man must be born before freedom can be won, and the brotherly man must be born before full brotherhood can be won. It will come into being only if we build it out of our very muscle and bone – by trying to act it out.
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Vengeance is not the point; change is. But the trouble is that in most people’s minds the thought of victory and the thought of punishing the enemy coincide.
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The point is to change one’s life. The point is not to give some vent to the emotions that have been destroying one; the point is so to act that one can master them now.
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Our own pulse beats in every stranger’s throat.
BARBARA DEMING -
The longer we listen to one another – with real attention – the more commonality we will find in all our lives. That is, if we are careful to exchange with one another life stories and not simply opinions.
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We cannot live without our lives
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A great many of us must move from words to acts – from words of dissent to acts of disobedience.
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I learned always to trust my own deep sense of what I should do, and not just obediently trust the judgment of others – even others better than I am.
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This is the heart of my argument: We can put more pressure on the antagonist for whom we show human concern.
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Of course it can be said of jails, too, that they try – by punishing the troublesome – to deter others. No doubt, in certain instances this deterrence actually works. But generally speaking it fails conspicuously.
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There should be no censorship of mail.
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Let me be really here, here in this place and this time where I am.
BARBARA DEMING