Political Violence Quotes

So, these political activities will create friction in and of themselves, and in this environment of friction there'll be additional violence. ~ John Abizaid

Looked at objectively, it is clear that the overwhelming majority of civilian deaths resulting from political violence are produced by what should be understood as "state terror." Terrorism also serves as an excuse to avoid diplomacy and the peaceful resolution of conflict. ~ Richard A. Falk

The piled-up dead of political violence are a generic staple of our information diet these days, and according to the generic report all massacres are created equal: the dead are innocent, the killers monstrous, the surrounding politics insane or nonexistent ... The anonymous dead and their anonymous killers become their own context. The horror becomes absurd. ~ Philip Gourevitch

All religions have based morality on obedience, that is to say, on voluntary slavery. That is why they have always been more pernicious than any political organization. For the latter makes use of violence, the former - of the corruption of the will. ~ Alexander Herzen

I mean I grew up in Ireland, so one would have to be consciously blinkered not to have reflected on the issue of political violence because that was the story since I was 19 years old or 20. ~ Neil Jordan

Non-violence is not a passive idea. It is ethical activism at its political best ~ Ela Bhatt

When love of one's people becomes an absolute, it turns into racism. When love of equality turns into a supreme thing, it can result in hatred and violence toward anyone who has led a privileged life. It is the settled tendency of human societies to turn good political causes into counterfeit gods. ~ Timothy Keller

Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political moral questions of our time. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

When we use the word domestic [terrorism], we discount its actual impact as political terrorism, which is, of course, political violence meant to impact an audience outside of the immediate victims. ~ Malcolm Wrightson Nance

Political history is largely an account of mass violence and of the expenditure of vast resources to cope with mythical fears and hopes ~ Murray Edelman

What drivel it all is! ... A string of words called religion. Another string of words called philosophy. Half a dozen other stringscalled political ideals. And all the words either ambiguous or meaningless. And people getting so excited about them they'll murder their neighbours for using a word they don't happen to like. A word that probably doesn't mean as much as a good belch. Just a noise without even the excuse of gas on the stomach. ~ Aldous Huxley

I was grateful for the opportunity to make a difference. The political violence really started in 1970-1971. The political difficulties start a little bit beyond that. ~ John Hume

Increasingly gang violence and organized crime, together with climate change-driven natural disasters, are displacing more people as wars are fewer on the continent and political violence has decreased considerably, the NRC has decided to treat this as a humanitarian crisis. ~ Jan Egeland

I've always been very interested in political violence. When I finished high school, I did a small dissertation about political violence and fascism in Italy. ~ Loretta Napoleoni

Terrorism n.
Violence for political purposes or the politically motivated threat of violence which, either intentionally or unintentionally, challenges the state's monopoly on political violence. ~ Leslie Starr O'Hara

It is organized violence on top which creates individual violence at the bottom. It is the accumulated indignation against organized wrong, organized crime, organized injustice, which drives the political offender to act. ~ Emma Goldman

I am deeply disturbed by the senseless violence instigated by some leaders in pursuit of their personal political agenda. ~ Mwai Kibaki

In college I studied '60s and '70s radicalism, student activism, forms of political violence, groups like the Weathermen, the Black Panthers, the Symbionese Liberation Army, the New Left. ~ Marisha Pessl

In these pages, it is my intention to make many people - not only Muslims but also Western apologists for Islam - uncomfortable. I am not going to do this by drawing cartoons. Rather, I intend to challenge centuries of religious orthodoxy with ideas and arguments that I am certain will be denounced as heretical. My argument is for nothing less than a Muslim Reformation. Without fundamental alterations to some of Islam's core concepts, I believe, we shall not solve the burning and increasingly global problem of political violence carried out in the name of religion. I intend to speak freely, in the hope that others will debate equally freely with me on what needs to change in Islamic doctrine, rather than seeking to stifle discussion. ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali

I will die like a true-blue rebel. Don't waste any time in mourning - organize. ~ Joe Hill

It is seldom that domestic violence is an isolated episode; rather it is comprised of a number of episodes over an extended period of time. ~ Asa Don Brown

[Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964], many governments in southern states forced people to segregate by race. Civil rights advocates fought to repeal these state laws, but failed. So they appealed to the federal government, which responded with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But this federal law didn't simply repeal state laws compelling segregation. It also prohibited voluntary segregation. What had been mandatory became forbidden. Neither before nor after the Civil Rights Act were people free to make their own decisions about who they associated with. ~ Harry Browne

Both the fragmentation of power and the conflicting government policies are rooted in the political realities of a democratic system that operates by enacting detailed and specific legislation. Such a system tends to give undue political power to small groups that have highly concentrated interests, to give greater weight to obvious, direct, and immediate effects of government action than to possibly more important but concealed, indirect, and delayed effects, to set in motion a process that sacrifices the general interest to serve special interests, rather than the other way around. There is, as it were, an invisible hand in politics that operates in precisely the opposite direction to Adam Smith's invisible hand. Individuals who intend only to promote the general interest are led by the invisible political hand to promote a special interest that they had no intention to promote. ~ Milton Friedman

I think the most exciting thing is access to information. People's ability to document things and expose things that may have not otherwise been documented and exposed. All the information you want is available instantly, which is overwhelming, but I think can have a positive change on the political process and accountability for leaders and corporations. ~ Moby

We all say in our own lives that money isn't everything. Love matters, friendships matter. My relationship with my kids matters. It shouldn't be a giant leap to take that thought and introduce it into political dialogue ~ David Cameron

To claim that America's "culture of violence" is responsible for school shootings is tantamount to cigarette company executives declaring that environmental pollution is the chief cause of lung cancer. ~ Stephen King

We need to respond to our present ecological crisis practically, by making appropriate social, political, economic, and technological changes. We need to look at the attitudes that have led to such devastation of the earth and to find a more harmonious way of living. And those of us who believe in the power of prayer need to pray for forgiveness and guidance. If a wiser and juster human order comes about, if a new harmony develops between humanity and the living world, this would indeed seem like an answer to prayer. ~ Rupert Sheldrake

Religion did not exist for the saving of souls but for the preservation and welfare of society, and in all that was necessary to this end every man had to take his part, or break with the domestic and political community to which he belonged. ~ William Robertson Smith

Liberals have a set of folk theories that are fallacious. One of them comes from the Enlightenment, and the assumption is that you are supposed to be logical. They assume all you have to do is tell people the facts and they will reason to the right conclusion. This is utterly ridiculous. Thought is mainly metaphorical. The frames trump all the facts. ~ George Lakoff

Universal violence compels the language to be mute ... Silence is not only a metaphor of Hemingway's work; it is also the source of its formal excellence, its integrity. ~ Ihab Hassan

Above all, there is no exception to this rule: that the idea of political superiority always resolves itself into the idea of psychological superiority. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

As politicians weigh courses of action against their political agendas the death toll weighs heavy on the conscience of the world. The once vibrant Syrian streets are now haunted by the souls of the innocent and the historic monuments that told of an unrivalled Arab civilisation no longer stand tall. ~ Aysha Taryam

[N]o serious historian of nations and nationalism can be a committed political nationalist ... Nationalism requires too much belief in what is patently not so. ~ Eric Hobsbawm

The book is called 'A House in the Sky' because during the very, very darkest times, that was how I survived. I had to find a safe place to go in my mind where there was no violence being done to my body and where I could reflect on the life I had lived and the life that I still wanted to live. ~ Amanda Lindhout

The country needs the political work of women today as much as it has ever needed woman in any other work at any other time. ~ Judith Ellen Foster

I ran for the presidency, despite hopeless odds, to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo ... to give a voice to the people the major candidates were ignoring. What I hope most is that now there will be others who will feel themselves as capable of running for high political office as any wealthy, good-looking white male. ~ Shirley Chisholm

Dear Lord, please lift me up and heal me. Cast out of my mind all thoughts that are not of You. Cast out of me all harsh and critical nature. Cast out of me all violence and all anger. Cast out of me all demons from my past. For I would be made new. I wish to walk so close to You that we might be as one. ~ Marianne Williamson

The idea that somewhere in the desert far away you have a CO2 absorber that's removing the CO2 from the air is an attractive one. It's a costly process that many will say is too expensive, but so are fuel cells in cars. It's a matter of political will to move this forward. ~ Klaus Lackner

Perhaps you expected to feel great as soon as you escaped your abuser, and maybe you did feel a great sense of relief for a while. However, as time has passed, you may be dismayed by the extent of your emotional pain. ~ Caroline Abbott

Nations that take pride in or glorify war, violence and death are sick societies. When unbridled patriotism trumps humanity, peace, justice & rationality, it becomes a poisonous cancer that is both abhorrent as well as mortiferous. ~ Mamur Mustapha

This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of the herd nature, the military system, which I abhor. That a man can take pleasure in marching in formation to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only been given his big brain by mistake; a backbone was all he needed. This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism by order, senseless violence, and all the pestilent nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism-how I hate them! ~ Albert Einstein

Whether I'll get the chance to write fiction, I don't know. I could do political conspiracy thrillers, couldn't I? With an investigative journalist as the heroine. ~ Heather Brooke

Herveus is impervious to emotions, but Aveline has unlocked something in him. He is drowning in a great wave, just trying to get back to the shore. The main memories he has from his childhood are of hunger. Just the echo of the gnawing pain makes him double over clasping his stomach. The other strongest memories are of violence - beatings from strangers leaving him unable to move for days. In all the haunting recollections, it had always been just him, alone. How could I forget my sister? It was like an impenetrable gate had opened in his mind, bringing forth another set of sad blue eyes from a time forgotten. I hadn't been alone ~ Michelle Connor

I do think students in public school (and private) should be required to study the Bible. As a matter of pure education, it's shocking that we [the americans] are not compelled to learn the book, which is the source of our language, our common stories, our political structure, our conflicts. ~ David Plotz

In an era of increasing violence, it is smart to query what has changed in the human environment to cause this. ~ Steven Magee

I have been in recent years the author of a bestiary and director of some atlas projects; I've written criticism, editorials, reports from a few front lines, letters, a great many political essays ... , more personal stuff, essays for artists' books, and more ... Nonfiction is the whole realm from investigative journalism to prose poems, from manifestos to love letters, from dictionaries to packing lists. ~ Rebecca Solnit

Every conceivable cruel method of blackmail was used against me to obtain by force and at all costs confessions and statements both about comrades who had been arrested, and about political activities. ~ Ernst Thalmann

The Crucible became by far my most frequently produced play, both abroad and at home. Its meaning is somewhat different in different places and moments. I can almost tell what the political situation in a country is when the play is suddenly a hit there it is either a warning of tyranny on the way or a reminder of tyranny just past. ~ Arthur Miller

I yearned for love from a person who didn't have it to give. I yearned for love from a person who was never loved, so why in the hell did I think she could give me what she never had?"
~Love is respect ♥~ ~ Charlena E. Jackson

Unless we're talking about old-school, witchcraft-trial violence, can we please phase out the phrase 'girl crush?' While we're at it, if we can axe 'like, total girl crush' unless Total Girl Crush is the name of a fizzy soft drink, in which case I'll take two, thank you. ~ Sloane Crosley