Quotes from Saul Alinsky

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.

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.

'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.

The prerequisite for an ideology is possession of a basic truth.

My only fixed truth is a belief in people: a conviction that if people have the opportunity to act freely and the power to control their own destinies, they'll generally reach the right decisions.

Radicals must be resilient, adaptable to shifting political circumstances, and sensitive enough to the process of action and reaction to avoid being trapped by their own tactics and forced to travel a road not of their choosing. In short, radicals must have a degree of control over the flow of events.

If the ends don't justify the means, what does?

The very first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom -- Lucifer.

Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.

The first step in community organization is community disorganization.

Everybody owned stock in the Capone mob; in a way, he was a public benefactor. I remember one time when he arrived at his box seat in Dyche Stadium for a Northwestern football game on Boy Scout Day, and 8,000 scouts got up in the stands and screamed in cadence, 'Yea, yea, Big Al. Yea, yea, Big Al.'

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 Capone gang was actually a public utility; it supplied what the people wanted and demanded.

All change means disorganization of the old and organization of the new.

It does not matter what you know about anything if you cannot communicate to your people. In that event you are not even a failure. You're just not there.

We must believe that it is the darkest before the dawn of a beautiful new world. We will see it when we believe it.

Dogma, Whatever Form It Takes, Is The Ultimate Enemy Of Human Freedom.

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 greatest enemy of individual freedom is the individual himself.

America's corporations are a spiritual slum, and their arrogance is the major threat to our future as a free society.

There can be no darker or more devastating tragedy than the death of man's faith in himself and in his power to direct his future.