It's going to be a combination Scopes trial, revolution in the streets, Woodstock Festival and People's Park, all rolled into one.
Abbie HoffmanRead
Every rock or molotov cocktail thrown should make a very obvious political point. Random violence produces random propaganda results. Why waste even a rock?
Interpretation
What this quote means
Violence should have a clear purpose and message; otherwise, it's ineffective.
Abbie Hoffman emphasizes that acts of violence, such as throwing rocks or molotov cocktails, should not be random but instead serve a specific political agenda. Engaging in violence without a clear message dilutes its impact and effectiveness, making it a wasted effort.
Themes
ViolencePoliticalProtestPurposeImpact
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on activist strategies, one might use this quote to highlight the importance of purposeful protests.
More from Abbie Hoffman
All quotes βPeace is a very complicated concept. When the lion gobbles up the lamb and wipes his lips, then there's peace. Well, I ain't for that peace at all.
Abbie HoffmanRead
What if when they called a war, no one went?
Abbie HoffmanRead
Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit.
Abbie HoffmanRead
I think the greatest legacy of the 1960s was the general feeling that not only can you fight the powers that be, but you can win.
Abbie HoffmanRead
The idea that media is there to educate us, or to inform us, is ridiculous because that's about tenth or eleventh on their list.
Abbie HoffmanRead
Similar quotes
We cannot run a democracy without a strong middle class.
Elizabeth WarrenRead
Theodore Roosevelt's policy to build a two-ocean navy confirmed that the old-style isolationism of the founders had not survived the modern, increasingly globalized world.
Margaret MacmillanRead
I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
Thomas JeffersonRead
The great constitutional corrective in the hands of the people against usurpation of power, or corruption by their agents is the right of suffrage; and this when used with calmness and deliberation will prove strong enough.
Andrew JacksonRead
There is not an example on record of any free state holding a province of the same extent and population without disastrous consequences. The nations conquered and held as a province have, in time, retaliated by destroying the liberty of their conquerors through the corrupting effect of extended patronage and irresponsible power.
John C. CalhounRead
The most important political office is that of the private citizen.
Louis D. BrandeisRead