#dissent

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality. ↗

— Desmond Tutu

#courage #dissent #moral-courage #neutrality #protest

If there is anything that links the human to the divine, it is the courage to stand by a principle when everybody else rejects it. ↗

— Abraham Lincoln

#inspirational #moral-courage #public-opinion #religion #courage

Neither with those nor with the others, with all I agree and dissent; in all part of truth and part of error must be seen. ↗

— Michael Servetus

#dissent #error #i #must #neither

...when two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly halfway between them. It is possible for one side to be simply wrong. ↗

— Richard Dawkins

#opinion #truth #equality

People may believe that there can be a society where dissent is not permitted, but which is nonetheless not a fear society because everyone agrees with one another and therefore no one wants to dissent. ↗

— Natan Sharansky

#because #believe #dissent #everyone #fear

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." [Special Message to the Congress on the Internal Security of the United States, August 8, 1950] ↗

— Harry S. Truman

#dissent #freedom-of-speech #opposition #politics #repression

I learned early that crying out in protest could accomplish things. My older brothers and sister had started to school when, sometimes, they would come in and ask for a buttered biscuit or something and my mother, impatiently, would tell them no. But I would cry out and make a fuss until I got what I wanted. I remember well how my mother asked me why I couldn't be a nice boy like Wilfred; but I would think to myself that Wilfred, for being so nice and quiet, often stayed hungry. So early in life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise. ↗

— Malcolm X

#dissent #inspirational #protest #inspirational

Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else. ↗

— Theodore Roosevelt

#dissent #patriotism #truth-telling #president

In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot. ↗

— Czesław Miłosz

#dissent #heroes #honesty #integrity #truth

It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority. ↗

— Benjamin Franklin

#duty #independent-thought #independence