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1. black
2. grey
3. blue
4. red
5. brown
6. white

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.

Barbara Deming

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LyingPeaceThinking

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More Barbara Deming Quotes

• 

  Vengeance is not the point: change is.

  BARBARA DEMING
  ChangePointVengeanc
• 

  Our task, of course, is to transmute the anger that is affliction into the anger that is determination to bring about change. I think, in fact, that one could give that as a definition of revolution.

  BARBARA DEMING
  AngerDeterminationThinking
• 

  All prisons that have existed in our society to date put people away as no human being should ever be put away.

  BARBARA DEMING
  OurPeoplePrisonSociety
• 

  There should be no censorship of mail.

  BARBARA DEMING
  CensorshipMailRegulationStrict
• 

  Surely all of us are nerved by one another, catch courage from one another.

  BARBARA DEMING
  AnotherCourageNerveSurely
• 

  The injunction that we should love our neighbors as ourselves means to us equally that we should love ourselves as we love our neighbors.

  BARBARA DEMING
  InjunctionMeanNeighborOurselves
• 

  People who attack others need rationalizations for doing so. We undermine those rationalizations.

  BARBARA DEMING
  AttackNeedPeopleRationalization
• 

  We believe, in fact, that the one act of respect has little force unless matched by the other – in balance with it… The acting out of that dual respect I would name as precisely the source of our power.

  BARBARA DEMING
  BalanceBelieveName
• 

  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
  ChangeMindPeople
• 

  Let me be really here, here in this place and this time where I am.

  BARBARA DEMING
  HappenLiveMomentPlaceTime
• 

  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
  DoubtJailTrying
• 

  This is the heart of my argument: We can put more pressure on the antagonist for whom we show human concern.

  BARBARA DEMING
  ArgumentHeartPressure
• 

  After the revolution, it might very well remain necessary to place people where they could not do harm to others. But the one under restraint should be cut off from the rest of society as little as possible.

  BARBARA DEMING
  CuttingHarmLittlePeopleRevolution
• 

  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.

  BARBARA DEMING
  DestroyingEmotionGiving
• 

  A liberation movement that is nonviolent sets the oppressor free as well as the oppressed.

  BARBARA DEMING
  LiberationMovementStrength
• 

  Think first of the action that is right to take, think later about coping with one’s fears.

  BARBARA DEMING
  FearFirstThinking
• 

  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.

  BARBARA DEMING
  DiversityPeaceReal
• 

  We cannot live without our lives

  BARBARA DEMING
  HappenLifeLiveOurSurrounding
• 

  Nonviolent tactics can move into action on our behalf men not naturally inclined to act for us.

  BARBARA DEMING
  MenMovingTactic
• 

  I think the only choice that will enable us to hold to our vision. . . is one that abandons the concept of naming enemies and adopts a concept familiar to the nonviolent tradition: naming behavior that is oppressive.

  BARBARA DEMING
  ChoicesEnemyThinking
• 

  To resort to power one need not be violent, and to speak to conscience one need not be meek.

  BARBARA DEMING
  NeedSpeakViolent
• 

  A great many of us must move from words to acts – from words of dissent to acts of disobedience.

  BARBARA DEMING
  GreatMenMovingObedience
• 

  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?

  BARBARA DEMING
  EffectivenessPeaceWife
• 

  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.

  BARBARA DEMING
  LyingPeaceThinking
• 

  Our own pulse beats in every stranger’s throat.

  BARBARA DEMING
  PulseSpiritualStranger
• 

  After the revolution, let us hope, prisons simply would not exist – if by prisons we mean places that could be experienced by the men and women in them at all as every place that goes by that name now is bound to be experienced.

  BARBARA DEMING
  ExperienceMeanMenNameSimply
• 

  Punishment cannot heal spirits, can only break them.

  BARBARA DEMING
  BreakPunishmentSpirit