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

Barbara Deming

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

Our People Prison Society
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
Punishment cannot heal spirits, can only break them.
BARBARA DEMING

Break Punishment Spirit
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

Effectiveness Peace Wife
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
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

Experience Mean Men Name Simply
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

Balance Believe Name
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
Surely all of us are nerved by one another, catch courage from one another.
BARBARA DEMING

Another Courage Nerve Surely
Vengeance is not the point: change is.
BARBARA DEMING

Change Point Vengeanc
Our own pulse beats in every stranger’s throat.
BARBARA DEMING

Pulse Spiritual Stranger
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

Able Antagonist Gains Real
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
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.
BARBARA DEMING

Being Brotherhood Free Men
Let me be really here, here in this place and this time where I am.
BARBARA DEMING

Happen Live Moment Place Time
There should be no censorship of mail.
BARBARA DEMING

Censorship Mail Regulation Strict

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

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

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Popular Authors

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