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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

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

Choices Enemy Thinking
Let me be really here, here in this place and this time where I am.
BARBARA DEMING

Happen Live Moment Place Time
Think first of the action that is right to take, think later about coping with one’s fears.
BARBARA DEMING

Fear First Thinking
Our own pulse beats in every stranger’s throat.
BARBARA DEMING

Pulse Spiritual Stranger
We learn best to listen to our own voices if we are listening at the same time to other women-whose stories, for all our differences, turn out, if we listen well, to be our stories also.
BARBARA DEMING

Differences Justice Voice
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

Destroying Emotion Giving
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

Doubt Jail Trying
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

Diversity Peace Real
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

Change Long Running
Surely all of us are nerved by one another, catch courage from one another.
BARBARA DEMING

Another Courage Nerve Surely
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

Lying Peace Thinking
Nonviolent action does not have to get others to be nice. It can in effect force them to consult their consciences.
BARBARA DEMING

Action Doe Nice
To resort to power one need not be violent, and to speak to conscience one need not be meek.
BARBARA DEMING

Need Speak Violent
there is clearly a kind of anger that is healthy. It is the concentration of one’s whole being in the determination: this must change.
BARBARA DEMING

Anger Determination Healthy
Nonviolent tactics can move into action on our behalf men not naturally inclined to act for us.
BARBARA DEMING

Men Moving Tactic
There should be no censorship of mail.
BARBARA DEMING

Censorship Mail Regulation Strict

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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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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Popular Authors

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