The exercise of civil unrest

“To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.”
Abraham Lincoln.


The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then.
Thomas Jefferson.


“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”
Elie Wiesel.


“Who can protest an injustice but does not is an accomplice to the act”
The Talmud.


The real guarantee of freedom is an equilibrium of social forces in conflict, not the triumph of any one force.
Max Eastman.


Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels -- men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, we may never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.
Dwight. D. Eisenhower.


To silence criticism is to silence freedom.
Sidney Hook.


We are reluctant to admit that we owe our liberties to men of a type that today we hate and fear -- unruly men, disturbers of the peace, men who resent and denounce what Whitman called 'the insolence of elected persons' -- in a word, free men.
Gerald W. Johnson.













The voice of protest, of warning, of appeal is never more needed than when the clamor of fife and drum, echoed by the press and too often by the pulpit, is bidding all men fall in and keep step and obey in silence the tyrannous word of command. Then, more than ever, it is the duty of the good citizen not to be silent.
Charles Eliot Norton.


As long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost and science can never regress.
J.Robert Oppenheimer.


Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense.
Mark Twain.


"...it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds..."
Samuel Adams

The inherent right in the people to reform their government, I do not deny; and they have another right, and that is to resist unconstitutional laws without overturning the government.
Daniel Webster.




And finally, this entrepreneurial type who parked his pretzel cart right in the middle of the parade route. I couldn't find a quote for him.