Political Action Quotes

“A plan without action isn’t a plan, it’s a speech.”
― T. Boone Pickens

“Bei einem Volk von der Art des unsrigen”, trug ich vor, “ist das Seelische immer das Primäre und eigentlich Motivierende; die politische Aktion ist zweiter Ordnung, Reflex, Ausdruck, Instrument.”
― Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus

“We have two choices. We can be pessimistic, give up, and help ensure that the worst will happen. Or we can be optimistic, grasp the opportunities that surely exist, and maybe help make the world a better place. Not much of a choice.”
― Noam Chomsky, Optimism over Despair: On Capitalism, Empire, and Social Change

“When, thirty-five years ago, I tried to give a summary of the ideas and principles of that social philosophy that was once known under the name of liberalism, I did not indulge in the vain hope that my account would prevent the impending catastrophes to which the policies adopted by the European nations were manifestly leading. All I wanted to achieve was to offer to the small minority of thoughtful people an opportunity to learn something about the aims of classical liberalism and its achievements and thus to pave the way for a resurrection of the spirit of freedom after the coming debacle.”
― Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism: The Classical Tradition

“The task— especially for the newly awakened, the newly angry, especially for the white women, for whom incentives to renounce their rage will be highest in coming years—is to keep going, to not turn back, to not give in to the easier path, the one where we weren’t angry all the time, where we accepted the comforts of racial and economic advantage that will always be on offer to those who don’t challenge power. Our job is to stay angry . . . perhaps for a very long time.”
― Rebecca Traister, Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger

“Political action has come to be a surrogate for salvation; but no political project can deliver humanity from its natural condition. However radical, political programmes are expe­dients—modest devices for coping with recurring evils.”
― John Gray, Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

“The West’s adversarial political system, in which all manner of decisions were made by majority rule, was little more than a refined version of civil war, replacing one form of coercion (fighting) with another (voting).”
― Benjamin Nathans, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement