The fall of one regime does not bring in a utopia. Rather, it opens the way for hard work and long efforts to build more just social, economic,and political relationships and the eradication of other forms of injustices and oppression.

Nonviolent action involves opposing the opponent's power, including his police and military capacity, not with the weapons chosen by him but by quite different means. Repression by the opponent is used against his own power position in a kind of political "ju-jitsu" and the very sources of his power thus reduced or removed, with the result that his political and military position is seriously weakened or destroyed.

There should be no romanticism that international public opinion or even international diplomatic and economic pressure can defeat a coup without determined and strong defense by the attacked society itself

Nonviolent struggle is the most powerful means available to those struggling for freedom.

So, he reasoned, if you can identify the sources of a government's power - people working in civil service, police and judges, even the army - then you know what a dictatorship depends on for its existence.

Whatever promises offered by dictators in any negotiated settlement, no one should ever forget that the dictators may promise anything to secure submission from their democratic opponents, and then brazenly violate those same agreements.

Violence by the defenders will be used by the putschists to justify overwhelming repression which they want to use anyhow. It will be used to CLAIM that the putschists are saving the country from ‪‎terrorism or ‪#civil war‬, and are preserving "‪law‬ and ‪‎order‬