Dogma, Whatever Form It Takes, Is The Ultimate Enemy Of Human Freedom.

A free and open society is an ongoing conflict, interrupted periodically by compromises.

The organizers first job is to create the issues or problems, and organizations must be based on many issues. The organizer must first rub raw the resentments of the people of the community; fan the latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expression. He must search out controversy and issues, rather than avoid them, for unless there is controversy people are not concerned enough to act. . . . An organizer must stir up dissatisfaction and discontent.

Once you accept your own death, all of a sudden you're free to live. You no longer care about your reputation. You no longer care except so far as your life can be used tactically to promote a cause you believe in.

The standards of judgment must be rooted in the whys and wherefores of life as it is lived, the world as it is, not our wished-for fantasy of the world as it should be.

Liberals like people with their heads, radicals like people with both their heads and their hearts.

As an organizer I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be.