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Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals QUOTES

Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals QUOTES

41 " What the present generation wants is what all generations have always wanted—a meaning, a sense of what the world and life are—a chance to strive for some sort of order. "

― Saul D. Alinsky , Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals

42 " A reformation means that masses of our people have reached the point of disillusionment with past ways and values. They don’t know what will work but they do know that the prevailing system is self-defeating, frustrating, and hopeless. They won’t act for change but won’t strongly oppose those who do. The time is then ripe for revolution. "

― Saul D. Alinsky , Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals

43 " Citizen participation is the animating spirit and force in a society predicated on voluntarism. We "

― Saul D. Alinsky , Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals

44 " There can be no darker or more devastating tragedy than the death of man’s faith in himself and in his power to direct his future. I "

― Saul D. Alinsky , Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals

45 " Today everything is so complex as to be incomprehensible. What sense does it make for men to walk on the moon while other men are waiting on welfare lines, or in Vietnam killing and dying for a corrupt dictatorship in the name of freedom? "

― Saul D. Alinsky , Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals

46 " As Mark Twain once put it, “The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. "

― Saul D. Alinsky , Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals

47 " In the politics of human life, consistency is not a virtue. "

― Saul D. Alinsky , Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals

48 " Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins—or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom—Lucifer. —SAUL ALINSKY "

― Saul D. Alinsky , Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals

49 " In this world laws are written for the lofty aim of “the common good” and then acted out in life on the basis of the common greed. "

― Saul D. Alinsky , Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals

50 " They have seen the almost unbelievable idiocy of our political leadership—in the past political leaders, ranging from the mayors to governors to the White House, were regarded with respect and almost reverence; today they are viewed with contempt. This negativism now extends to all institutions, from the police and the courts to “the system” itself. We are living in a world of mass media which daily exposes society’s innate hypocrisy, its contradictions and the apparent failure of almost every facet of our social and political life. "

― Saul D. Alinsky , Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals

51 " The function of an organizer is to raise questions that agitate, that break through the accepted pattern. "

― Saul D. Alinsky , Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals

52 " We are not here concerned with people who profess the democratic faith but yearn for the dark security of dependency where they can be spared the burden of decisions. Reluctant to grow up, or incapable of doing so, they want to remain children and be cared for by others. Those who can, should be encouraged to grow; for the others, the fault lies not in the system but in themselves. "

― Saul D. Alinsky , Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals

53 " Knowing that the mountain has no top, that it is a perpetual quest from plateau to plateau, the question arises, “Why the struggle, the conflict, the heartbreak, the danger, the sacrifice. Why the constant climb?” Our answer is the same as that which a real mountain climber gives when he is asked why he does what he does. “Because it’s there.” Because life is there ahead of you and either one tests oneself in its challenges or huddles in the valleys in a dreamless day-to-day existence whose only purpose is the preservation of an illusory security and safety. "

― Saul D. Alinsky , Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals

54 " Why stroke the hypersensitive ears of our modern weaklings? Why yield even a single step … to the Tartuffery of words? For us psychologists that would involve a Tartuffery of action … For a psychologist today shows his good taste (others may say his integrity) in this, if in anything, that he resists the shamefully moralized manner of speaking which makes all modern judgments about men and things slimy. We "

― Saul D. Alinsky , Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals

55 " There is a feeling of death hanging over the nation. Today "

― Saul D. Alinsky , Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals

56 " To pander to those who have no stomach for straight language, and insist upon bland, non controversial sauces, is a waste of time. They cannot on deliberately will not understand what we are discussing here. "

― Saul D. Alinsky , Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals

57 " The history of prevailing status quos shows decay and decadence infecting the opulent materialism of the Haves. The spiritual life of the Haves is a ritualistic justification of their possessions. "

― Saul D. Alinsky , Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals

58 " To the man of action the first criterion in determining which means to employ is to assess what means are available. Reviewing and selecting available means is done on a straight utilitarian basis—will it work? Moral questions may enter when one chooses among equally effective alternate means. But if one lacks the luxury of a choice and is possessed of only one means, then the ethical question will never arise; automatically the lone means becomes endowed with a moral spirit. Its defense lies in the cry, “What else could I do?” Inversely, the secure position in which one possesses the choice of a number of effective and powerful means is always accompanied by that ethical concern and serenity of conscience so admirably described by Mark Twain as “The calm confidence of a Christian holding four aces.” To "

― Saul D. Alinsky , Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals

59 " There can be no such thing as a successful traitor, for if one succeeds he becomes a founding father. The "

― Saul D. Alinsky , Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals

60 " The human spirit glows from that small inner light of doubt whether we are right, while those who believe with complete certainty that they possess the right are dark inside and darken the world outside with cruelty, pain, and injustice. "

― Saul D. Alinsky , Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals