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Has there ever
been a society which has died of dissent? Several have died
of conformity in our lifetime.
-- Jacob Bronowski
1908-1974, British Scientist,
Author
I stood among
them, but not of them; in a shroud of thoughts which were
not their thoughts.
-- Lord Byron
1788-1824, British Poet
Assent -- and
you are sane -- , demur -- you're straightway dangerous -- ,
and handled with a Chain -- .
-- Emily Dickinson
1830-1886, American Poet
Wild
intelligence abhors any narrow world; and the world of women
must stay narrow, or the woman is an outlaw. No woman could
be Nietzsche or Rimbaud without ending up in a whorehouse or
lobotomized.
-- Andrea Dworkin
1946-, American Feminist
Critic
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May we never
confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower
1890-1969, Thirty-fourth
President of the USA
In a democracy
dissent is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its
value is not in its taste, but its effects.
-- J. William Fulbright
1905-, American Democratic
Politician
I would like
you to understand completely, also emotionally, that I'm a
political detainee and will be a political prisoner, that I
have nothing now or in the future to be ashamed of in this
situation. That, at bottom, I myself have in a certain sense
asked for this detention and this sentence, because I've
always refused to change my opinion, for which I would be
willing to give my life and not just remain in prison. That
therefore I can only be tranquil and content with myself.
-- Antonio Gramsci
1891-1937, Italian Political
Theorist
You do not
become a ''dissident'' just because you decide one day to
take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by
your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a
complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of
the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict
with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and
ends with being branded an enemy of society.
-- Vaclav Havel
1936-, Czech Playwright,
President
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