Martin Luther King, Jr.
Civil Rights Leader
"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."
Direct Action quotes
Direct Action
43 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Civil Rights Leader
"We who in engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Civil Rights Leader
"Justice too long delayed is justice denied."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Civil Rights Leader
"Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with an its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured."
Emma Goldman
Anarchist, Political Activist, Writer
"If not for the direct action of a John Brown and his comrades, America would still trade in the flesh of the black man."
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside direct action — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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Direct Action quotes (page 1 of 3)
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"I have examined the death penalty under each of its two aspects: as a direct action, and as an indirect one. What does it come down to? Nothing but something horrible and useless, nothing but a way of shedding blood that is called a crime when an individual commits it, but is sadly called "justice" when society brings it about. Make no mistake, you lawmakers and judges, in the eyes of God as in those of conscience, what is a crime when individuals do it is no less an offense when society commits the deed."
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"It is our experience that the nation doesn't move around questions of genuine equality for the poor and for black people until it is confronted massively, dramatically in terms of direct action."
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"Non-violent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored... I am not afraid of the word tension. I have earnestly worked and preached against violent tension, and there is a type of constructive tension that is necessary for growth."
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"In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and direct action."
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"For years now I have heard the word "wait." It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This "wait" has almost always meant "never.""
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"We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly I have never yet engaged in a direct action movement that was 'well timed,' according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word 'Wait!' It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This 'wait' has almost always meant 'never.' We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that 'justice too long delayed is justice denied.'"
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"Direct action is the logical, consistent method of Anarchism."
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"A grand and almost untrodden field of inquiry will be opened, on the causes and laws of variation, on correlation of growth, on the effects of use and disuse, on the direct actions of external conditions, and so forth."
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"Even if it doesn't work, there is something healthy and invigorating about direct action"
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"The purpose of direct action is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation."
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"Direct action against the authority in the shop, direct action against the authority of the law, direct action against the invasive, meddlesome authority of our moral code, is the logical, consistent method of Anarchism. Will it not lead to a revolution? Indeed, it will. No real social change has ever come without a revolution. People are either not familiar with their history, or they have not yet learned that revolution is but thought carried into action."
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"Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has consistently refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue."
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"Anarchism...stands for direct action, the open defiance of, and resistance to, all laws and restrictions, economic, social, and moral."
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"The Virgin filled so enormous a space in the life and thought of the time that one stands now helpless before the mass of testimony to her direct action and constant presence in every moment and form of the illusion which men thought they thought their existence."
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"We had no alternative except that of preparing for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and national community."
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"Education without direction is a one-sided social value. Direct action without education is a meaningless expression of pure energy."
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