We cannot live without our lives
BARBARA DEMINGOf 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.
More Barbara Deming Quotes
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A liberation movement that is nonviolent sets the oppressor free as well as the oppressed.
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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.
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Nonviolent tactics can move into action on our behalf men not naturally inclined to act for us.
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It is one thing to be able to state the price the antagonist paid, another to be able to count you own real gains.
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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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Let me be really here, here in this place and this time where I am.
BARBARA DEMING -
People who attack others need rationalizations for doing so. We undermine those rationalizations.
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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.
BARBARA DEMING -
All prisons that have existed in our society to date put people away as no human being should ever be put away.
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Surely all of us are nerved by one another, catch courage from one another.
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What is the revolution that we need? We need to dissolve the lie that some people have a right to think of other people as their property. And we need at last to form a circle that includes us all, in which all of us are seen as equal… We do not belong to the other, but our lives are linked; we belong in a circle of others.
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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.
BARBARA DEMING -
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.
BARBARA DEMING -
Our own pulse beats in every stranger’s throat.
BARBARA DEMING -
Punishment cannot heal spirits, can only break them.
BARBARA DEMING