These quotes emphasize the importance of challenging injustice, resisting oppression, and refusing to comply with unethical or unjust rules and systems. They serve as reminders of the power of individuals to effect change when they stand up for what they believe is right.
- Mahatma Gandhi: “Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.”
- Henry David Thoreau: “If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so.”
- Nelson Mandela: “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
- Martin Luther King Jr.: “One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”
- Albert Einstein: “Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”
- Rosa Parks: “I had been pushed as far as I could stand to be pushed, I suppose. I had decided that I would have to know once and for all what rights I had as a human being and a citizen.”
- Susan B. Anthony: “Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, can never effect a reform.”
- Desmond Tutu: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
- Edward Snowden: “Saying ‘I don’t care about privacy because I have nothing to hide’ is like saying ‘I don’t care about freedom of speech because I have nothing to say.’”
- Emma Goldman: “The most violent element in society is ignorance.”