You do not become a "dissident" just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society.

- Vaclav Havel

America was not built by conformists, but by mutineers.

- Jim Hightower

We are so placid that the smallest tremor of objection is taken as a full-scale revolution.

- Cynthia Ozick

Intellect does not attain its full force unless it attacks power.

- Madame de Stael

The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

- John Stuart Mill

The cry has been that when war is declared, all opposition should be hushed. A sentiment more unworthy of a free country could hardly be propagated.

- William Ellery Channing

The only way to make sure people you agree with can speak is to support the rights of people you don't agree with.

- Eleanor Holmes Norton

I have spent many years of my life in opposition and I rather like the role.

- Eleanor Roosevelt

When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free.

- Charles Evan Hughes

I was raised to speak out about politics and the world around me. I would do it whether I was in the public or not. It is the way I was taught. The American way.

- Judy Collins

The people cannot be all, and always well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive.

- Thomas Jefferson

If you don't speak out now when it matters, when would it matter for you to speak out?

- Jim Hightower

Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism: The right to criticize. The right to hold unpopular beliefs. The right to protest. The right of independent thought.

- Margaret Chase Smith

Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it.

- Howard Zinn

Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience.

- Howard Zinn

What matters most is not who is sitting in the White House, but "who is sitting in" -- and who is marching outside the White House, pushing for change.

- Howard Zinn



Historically, the most terrible things -- war, genocide, and slavery -- have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience.

- Howard Zinn



Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.

- Howard Zinn



The great danger for American democracy is not from the protesters. That democracy is too poorly realized for us to consider critics -- even rebels -- as the chief problem. Its fulfillment requires us all, living in an ossified system which sustains too much killing and too much selfishness, to join the protest.

- Howard Zinn



We live in a country where we're supposed to have freedom of the press and religious freedom, but I think to some degree, there's a sense of fear in America today, that if you say the wrong thing, what some people will consider what is wrong, if you step out of line, if you dissent, whether you be an entertainer, that somehow and some way this government or the forces to be will come down on you.

- John L. Lewis



I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. (paraphrasing Voltaire)

- Evelyn Beatrice Hall



I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions, even though I long ago came to the conclusion that I was not a political person and could have no comfortable place in any political group.
[Letter to the US House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities, 1952]

- Lillian Hellman



Nothing is complete and thus nothing is exempt from criticism.

- James Luther Adams



It may well be that our means are fairly limited and our possibilities restricted when it comes to applying pressure on our government. But is this a reason to do nothing? Despair is nor an answer. Neither is resignation. Resignation only leads to indifference, which is not merely a sin but a punishment

- Elie Wiesel



Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.



Talent ... is most likely to be found among non-conformists, dissenters, and rebels.

- David Ogilvy



Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.

- William O. Douglas



Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.

- Harry S Truman



You've got to rattle your cage door. You've got to let them know that you're in there, and that you want out. Make noise. Cause trouble. You may not win right away, but you'll sure have a lot more fun.

- Florynce Kennedy



In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.

- George Orwell



Without debate, without criticism, no administration and no country can succeed -- and no republic can survive

- John F. Kennedy



No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices. (about Senator Joseph McCarthy's accusations about Communism in the American government)

- Edward R. Murrow



We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.

- Edward R. Murrow



Non-cooperation is a measure of discipline and sacrifice, and it demands respect for the opposite views.

- Mohandas K. Gandhi



What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority.

- Molly Ivins



The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself.

- Archibald Macleish



The beginning of thought is in disagreement -- not only with others but also with ourselves.

- Eric Hoffer



No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.

- Barbara Ehrenreich



To go against the dominant thinking of your friends, of most of the people you see every day, is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can perform.

- Theodore H. White



In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith.

- J. William Fulbright