People may find it more comfortable to listen to us if we equivocate, but in the long run only words that discomfort them are going to change our situation.

There should be no censorship of mail.

To resort to power one need not be violent, and to speak to conscience one need not be meek. The most effective action both resorts to power and engages conscience. Nonviolent actions does not have to get others to be nice. It can in effect force them to consult their consciences. Nor does it have to petition those in power to do something about a situation. It can face the authorities with a new fact and say: Accept this new situation which we have created.

Let me be really here, here in this place and this time where I am.

The point is to change one's life. The point is not to give some vent to the emotions that have been destroying one; the point is so to act that one can master them now.

Vengeance is not the point; change is. But the trouble is that in most people's minds the thought of victory and the thought of punishing the enemy coincide.

Gandhi once declared that it was his wife who unwittingly taught him the effectiveness of nonviolence. Who better than women should know that battles can be won without resort to physical strength? Who better than we should know all the power that resides in noncooperation?