Abbie Hoffman Quotes

You measure a democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.

Understand that legal and illegal are political, and often arbitrary, categorizations; use and abuse are medical, or clinical, distinctions.

Democracy is not something you believe in or a place to hang your hat, but it's something you do. You participate. If you stop doing it, democracy crumbles.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

I believe in compulsory cannibalism. If people were forced to eat what they killed, there would be no more wars.

Peace 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.

My critique of democracy begins and ends with this point. Kids must be educated to disrespect authority or else democracy is a farce.

Become an internationalist and learn to respect all life. Make war on machines. And in particular the sterile machines of corporate death and the robots that guard them.

Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger.

The best way to educate oneself is to become part of the revolution.

When decorum is repression, the only dignity free men have is to speak out.

Free speech means the right to shout 'theatre' in a crowded fire.

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.

The only way to support a revolution is to make your own.

To steal from a brother or sister is evil. To not steal from the institutions that are the pillars of the Pig Empire is equally immoral.

Nostalgia is a form of depression both for a society and an individual.

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.

Never impose your language on people you wish to reach.

It's too late. We can't win, they've gotten too powerful.

The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it. The second duty is to eat breakfast. I ain't going.

Avoid all needle drugs, the only dope worth shooting is Richard Nixon.

Maintain a sense of humor. People who take themselves too seriously are power-crazy. If they win it will be haircuts for all. Beware of power freaks.

The key to organizing an alternative society is to organize people around what they can do, and more importantly, what they want to do.

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.

Every rock or molotov cocktail thrown should make a very obvious political point. Random violence produces random propaganda results. Why waste even a rock?

Smoking dope and hanging up Che's picture is no more a commitment than drinking milk and collecting postage stamps.

The first duty of a revolutionist is to get away with it. The second duty is to eat breakfast. I ain't going.

Action is the only reality; not only reality, but morality as well.

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

Life-actors never rehearse and need no script. A life-actor uses whatever he has available, nothing more, nothing less.

Fantasy is the only truth.

What if when they called a war, no one went?

I just want to do what has to be done so much. I'll never understand why everyone else doesn't feel this way.

Expedience, not justice, is the rule of contemporary American law.

Structure is more important than content in the transmission of information.

..you just get stoned, get the ideas in your head and then do 'em. And don't bullshit. I mean that's the thing about doin' that guerrilla theatre. You be prepared to die to prove your point.

It's going to be a combination Scopes trial, revolution in the streets, Woodstock Festival and People's Park, all rolled into one.

I was probably the only professed revolutionary ever referred to as "cute."

Once you get the right image the details aren't that important.

Wouldn't you want to be indicted by the govenment for a high crime? It's a great thrill. It's an honor. It's a compliment. It's fun. I'm enjoying every minute of it!

A modern revolutionary group heads for the television station, not the factory. It concentrates its energy on infiltrating and changing the image system.

The work that the kids saw around them was so odious, so boring, so worthless that they came to regard WORK as the only dirty four-letter word in the English language.

The only reason you should be in college is to destroy it.

Hep is a very dangerous disease that can cause a number of permanent conditions, including death, which is extremely permanent.

Random political acts produce random political results. Why waste even a rock?

When I appear in the Chicago courtroom, I want to be tried not because I support the NLF - which I do - but because I have long hair.

It's embarrassing when you try to overthrow the government and you wind up on the Best Seller's List.

Action is the only reality not only reality but morality as well.

The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.

Action is the only reality not only reality but morality as well.