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 DEMINGI learned always to trust my own deep sense of what I should do, and not just obediently trust the judgment of others – even others better than I am.
More Barbara Deming Quotes
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Nonviolent tactics can move into action on our behalf men not naturally inclined to act for us.
BARBARA DEMING -
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.
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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.
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Surely all of us are nerved by one another, catch courage from one another.
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.
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We cannot live without our lives
BARBARA DEMING -
I learned always to trust my own deep sense of what I should do, and not just obediently trust the judgment of others – even others better than I am.
BARBARA DEMING -
Our own pulse beats in every stranger’s throat.
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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This is the heart of my argument: We can put more pressure on the antagonist for whom we show human concern.
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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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Let me be really here, here in this place and this time where I am.
BARBARA DEMING -
Nonviolent action does not have to get others to be nice. It can in effect force them to consult their consciences.
BARBARA DEMING -
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.
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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.
BARBARA DEMING