People cannot be free unless they are willing to sacrifice some of their interests to guarantee the freedom of others. The price of democracy is the ongoing pursuit of the common good by all of the people.
Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.
First rule of change is controversy. You can't get away from it for the simple reason all issues are controversial. Change means movement, and movement means friction, and friction means heat, and heat means controversy.
Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
Tactics mean doing what you can with what you have.
If the ends don't justify the means, what does?
We must believe that it is the darkest before the dawn of a beautiful new world. We will see it when we believe it.
'The Prince' was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. 'Rules for Radicals' is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.
As an organizer, I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be. That we accept the world as it is does not in any sense weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be - it is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be. That means working in the system.
A racially integrated community is a chronological term timed from the entrance of the first black family to the exit of the last white family.
The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
Once you accept your own death, all of a sudden you're free to live. You no longer care about your reputation. You no longer care except so far as your life can be used tactically to promote a cause you believe in.
The greatest enemy of individual freedom is the individual himself.
Life is a corrupting process from the time a child learns to play his mother off against his father in the politics of when to go to bed; he who fears corruption fears life.
A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
If the real radical finds that having long hair sets up psychological barriers to communication and organization, he cuts his hair. If I were organizing in an orthodox Jewish community, I would not walk in there eating a ham sandwich unless I wanted to be rejected so I could have an excuse to cop out.
Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and chance the future.
Always remember the first rule of power tactics; power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
The first step in community organization is community disorganization.
Last guys don't finish nice.
