Quotes from Barbara Deming

A great many of us must move from words to acts - from words of dissent to acts of disobedience.

Nonviolent action does not have to get others to be nice. It can in effect force them to consult their consciences.

there is clearly a kind of anger that is healthy. It is the concentration of one's whole being in the determination: this must change.

Vengeance is not the point; change is. But the trouble is that in most people's minds the thought of victory and the thought of punishing the enemy coincide.

We learn best to listen to our own voices if we are listening at the same time to other women-whose stories for all our differences turn out if we listen well to be our stories also.

Surely all of us are nerved by one another, catch courage from one another.

To resort to power one need not be violent, and to speak to conscience one need not be meek. The most effective action both resorts to power and engages conscience.

I think the only choice that will enable us to hold to our vision... is one that abandons the concept of naming enemies and adopts a concept familiar to the nonviolent tradition: naming behavior that is oppressive.

Think first of the action that is right to take, think later about coping with one's fears.