#dissent

"A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth."

"Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last."

"‎God remains silent so that men and women may speak, protest, and struggle. God remains silent so that people may really become people. When God is silent and men and women cry, God cries in solidarity with them but doesn't intervene. God waits for the shouts of protest."

"If you believe in your heart that you are right, then you must fight with all your might to do it your way. Only dead fish swim with the stream all the time."

"Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth."

"In a room wherepeople unanimously maintaina conspiracy of silence,one word of truthsounds like a pistol shot."

"Inevitably it follows that anyone with an independent mind must become 'one who resists or opposes an authority or established convention': a rebel. ...And if enough people come to agree with—and follow—the REBEL, we now have a DEVIL. Until, of course, still more people agree. And then, finally, we have ... GREATNESS."

"There is absolutely no greater high than challenging the power structure as a nobody, giving it your all, and winning!"

"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social enviroment. Most people are incapable of forming such opinions."(Essay to Leo Baeck, 1953)"

"A leader should always be open to criticism, not silencing dissent. Any leader who does not tolerate criticism from the public is afraid of their dirty hands to be revealed under heavy light. And such a leader is dangerous, because they only feel secure in the darkness. Only a leader who is free from corruption welcomes scrutiny; for scrutiny allows a good leader to be an even greater leader."

"The duty of youth is to challenge corruption."

"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual."

"...when two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly halfway between them. It is possible for one side to be simply wrong."

"If there is anything that links the human to the divine, it is the courage to stand by a principle when everybody else rejects it."