Quotes from David Dellinger

The worst thing that can happen to the New Left in this country is to turn the struggle into a military struggle against the establishment.

Each of us, individually and nationally, must choose: total love or total war.

In prison, the gloves were off, the comforting rhetoric and rationalization were absent. To use a phrase from Plato, I saw the laws of our society 'writ large' - its flagrant inequalities of opportunity and disastrous results, its contempt for vast categories of our fellow human beings, its reliance on institutional violence.

I think the myth about the 'silent generation' is just that, a myth.

Living among society's outcasts and experiencing the brutality of America's prison system did more to set (or confirm) the direction of my adult life than living at Yale.

I went from Yale to jail, and got a good education in both places.

Bernie Sanders is our Jesse Jackson only more so.

The Yippies, their lifestyle is different from mine. But I consider Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman inspired critics of the kind of society that we have.

I always emphasize that in the long run one can't satisfactorily say no to war, violence and injustice unless one is simultaneously saying yes to life and love and laughter.

All I have to do is look at a child's smile to keep going.

I'm against military methods.

Very few people chose war. They chose selfishness and the result was war. Each of us, individually and nationally, must choose: total love or total war.

We have become used to the missiles being among us. We don't think about what they can do.

The arrogance of power must be undermined.

It is time to stop talking about non-violence and to begin talking about force without violence.

I received more genuine religious stimulation in prison than in the seminary.

I'm just a feeble old man but I represent the spirit of speaking out.

I do a little of several things like writing, teaching and political organizing, but none of them as well as I would like.

We have to face up to the fact that five administrations have lied to us about Vietnam.

If the U.S. has its Vietnam... the Soviet Union has its Czechoslovakia. If the U.S. has its blacks and chicanos, then the Soviets have their Jews.

It doesn't pay to pretend that Vietnam was not a criminal war.

I believe that the United States has no possible ability to pacify the Vietnamese people, win support for Thieu, win a political victory or a military victory in the air, on the ground, in the North or the South.

Whatever happens to us, however unjustified, will be slight compared to what has happened already to the Vietnamese people, to the Black people in this country, to the criminals with whom we are now spending our days in the Cook County jail.

I believe in equality.