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All Quotes by author - Saul Alinsky
" All change means disorganization of the old and organization of the new. "
Organization
Means
New
" Always remember the first rule of power tactics; power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have. "
Power
You
Always
" 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. "
Future
People
Change
" 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. "
Community
White
Last
" 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. "
World
Believe
Start
" A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. "
Becomes
Drag
Long
" Change means movement. Movement means friction. Only in the frictionless vacuum of a nonexistent abstract world can movement or change occur without that abrasive friction of conflict. "
Conflict
Movement
Only
" 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.' "
Remember
Football
Time
" 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. "
Heat
You
Simple
" History is a relay of revolutions. "
Relay
History
Revolutions
" If the ends don't justify the means, what does? "
Does
Means
Ends
" 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. "
Hair
Community
Communication
" 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. "
Matter
People
You
" I've never joined any organization - not even the ones I've organized myself. I prize my own independence too much. "
Independence
Own
Organization
" Last guys don't finish nice. "
Nice
Guys
Last
" 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. "
Time
Life
Mother
" Mankind has been and is divided into three parts: the Haves, the Have-Nots, and the Have-a-Little, Want Mores. "
Want
Been
Divided
" 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. "
Opportunity
Truth Is
Truth
" No politician can sit on a hot issue if you make it hot enough. "
Sit
Enough
Hot
" 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. "
Life
Death
Free
" 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. "
Freedom
Democracy
Good
" Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. "
Freeze
Pick
Target
" Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have. "
Only
You
Power
" 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. "
Control
Short
Road
" Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. "
Man
Ridicule
Potent
" Tactics mean doing what you can with what you have. "
You
Doing
Mean
" The Capone gang was actually a public utility; it supplied what the people wanted and demanded. "
Utility
Wanted
Public
" The first step in community organization is community disorganization. "
Community
Step
Organization
" The greatest enemy of individual freedom is the individual himself. "
Individual
Freedom
Greatest
" The job of the organizer is to maneuver and bait the establishment so that it will publicly attack him as a 'dangerous enemy.' "
Attack
Will
Dangerous
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