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 DEMINGThis is the heart of my argument: We can put more pressure on the antagonist for whom we show human concern.
More Barbara Deming Quotes
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Think first of the action that is right to take, think later about coping with one’s fears.
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Surely all of us are nerved by one another, catch courage from one another.
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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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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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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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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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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.
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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.
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A liberation movement that is nonviolent sets the oppressor free as well as the oppressed.
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We cannot live without our lives
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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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It is one thing to be able to state the price the antagonist paid, another to be able to count you own real gains.
BARBARA DEMING -
Our own pulse beats in every stranger’s throat.
BARBARA DEMING -
Nonviolent tactics can move into action on our behalf men not naturally inclined to act for us.
BARBARA DEMING -
Vengeance is not the point: change is.
BARBARA DEMING