“ To be hopeful in bad times is based on the fact that human history is not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand Utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory. ”
- Howard Zinn- Copy
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“ TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory. ”
- Howard Zinn- Copy
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“ But human beings are not machines, and however powerful the pressure to conform, they sometimes are so moved by what they see as injustice that they dare to declare their independence. In that historical possibility lies hope. ”
- Howard Zinn- Copy
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“ The willingness to undertake such action cannot be based on certainties, but on those possibilities glimpsed in a reading of history different from the customary painful recounting of human cruelties. In such a reading we can find not only war but resistance to war, not only injustice but rebellion against injustice, not only selfishness but selfsacrifice, not only silence in the fact of tyranny but defiance, not only callousness but compassion. Human beings show a broad spectrum of qualities, but it is the worst of these that are usually emphasized, and the result, too often, is to dishearten us, diminish our spirit. And yet, historically, that spirit refuses to surrender. ”
- Howard Zinn- Copy
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“ The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory. ”
- Howard Zinn- Copy
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“ Slaves hung on determinedly to their selves, to their love of family, their wholeness. A shoemaker on the South Carolina Sea Islands expressed in his own way: "I'se lost an arm, but it hasn't gone out of my brains. ”
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“ I am supposing, or perhaps only hoping, that our future may be found in the past's fugitive moments of compassion rather than in its solid centuries of warfare. ”
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“ Before God and high heaven, is there a law for one man which is not a law for every other man? ”
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“ There is a power that can be created out of pentup indignation, courage, and the inspiration of a common cause, and that if enough people put their minds and bodies into that cause, they can win. It is a phenomenon recorded again and against in the history of popular movements against injustice all over the world. ”
- Howard Zinn- Copy
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“ Scientists who had worked on the atom bomb added their voices to the growing movement. George Kistiakowsky, a Harvard University chemistry professor who had worked on the first atomic bomb, and later was science adviser to President Eisenhower, became a spokesman for the disarmament movement. HIs last public remarks, before his death from cancer at the age of eightytwo, were in an editorial for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientist in December 1982. "I tell you as my parting words: Forget the channels. There simply is not enough time left before the world explodes. Concentrate instead on organizing, with so many others of like mind, a mass movement for peace such as there has not been before. ”
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“ Education becomes most rich and alive when it confronts the reality of moral conflict in the world. ”
- Howard Zinn- Copy
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“ I had always insisted that a good education was a synthesis of book learning and involvement in social action, that each enriched the other. I wanted my students to know that the accumulation of knowledge, while fascinating in itself, is not sufficient as long as so many people in the world have no opportunity to experience that fascination. ”
- Howard Zinn- Copy
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“ Education becomes most rich and alive when it confronts the reality of moral conflict in the world. ”
- Howard Zinn- Copy
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“ I had always insisted that a good education was a synthesis of book learning and involvement in social action, that each enriched the other. I wanted my students to know that the accumulation of knowledge, while fascinating in itself, is not sufficient as long as so many people in the world have no opportunity to experience that fascination. ”
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“ If the gods had intended for people to vote, they would have given us candidates. ”
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“ What matters most is not who is sitting in the White House, but 'who is sitting in' — and who is marching outside the White House, pushing for change. ”
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“ In the United States today, the Declaration of Independence hangs on schoolroom walls, but foreign policy follows Machiavelli. ”
- Howard Zinn- Copy
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“ Was all this bloodshed and deceit - from Columbus to Cortes, Pizarro the Puritans - a necessity for the human race to progress from savagery to civilization? Was Morison right in burying the story of genocide inside a more important story of human progress? Perhaps a persuasive argument can be made - as it was made by Stalin when he killed pesants for industrial progress in the Soviet Union, as it was made by Churchill explaining the bombings of Dresden and Hamburg, and Truman explaining Hiroshima… ”
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“ How can you have a war on terrorism when war itself is terrorism? ”
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“ When you fight a war against a tyrant, who do you kill? You kill the victims of the tyrant. ”
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“ Most wars, after all, present themselves as humanitarian endeavors to help people. ”
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“ In the United States today, the Declaration of Independence hangs on schoolroom walls, but foreign policy follows Machiavelli. ”
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“ Most wars, after all, present themselves as humanitarian endeavors to help people. ”
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“ In the United States today, the Declaration of Independence hangs on schoolroom walls, but foreign policy follows Machiavelli. ”
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“ Historically, the most terrible things — war, genocide, and slavery — have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience. ”
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“ How can you have a war on terrorism when war itself is terrorism? ”
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“ The term "just war" contains an internal contradiction. War is inherently unjust, and the great challenge of our time is how to deal with evil, tyranny, and oppression without killing huge numbers of people. ”
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