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You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.
Abbie Hoffman
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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. When all today's isms have become yesterday's ancient philosophy, there will still be reactionaries and there will still be revolutionaries. No amount of rationalization can avoid the moment of choice each of us brings to our situation here on the planet. I still believe in the fundamental injustice of the profit system and do not accept the proposition there will be rich and poor for all eternity.
Abbie Hoffman
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I believe in compulsory cannibalism. If people were forced to eat what they killed, there would be no more wars.
Abbie Hoffman
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A modern revolutionary group heads for the television station, not the factory. It concentrates its energy on infiltrating and changing the image system.
Abbie Hoffman
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Nostalgia is a form of depression both for a society and an individual.
Abbie Hoffman
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It's perhaps fitting that I write this introduction in jail.
Abbie Hoffman
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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.
Abbie Hoffman
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Usually when you ask somebody in college why they are there, they'll tell you it's to get an education. The truth of it is, they are there to get the degree so that they can get ahead in the rat race. Too many college radicals are two-timing punks.
Abbie Hoffman
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It's embarrassing when you try to overthrow the government and you wind up on the Best Seller's List.
Abbie Hoffman
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The best way to educate oneself is to become part of the revolution.
Abbie Hoffman
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Your body is just one in a mass of cuddly humanity. 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. The duty of a revolutionary is to make love and that means staying alive and free. That doesn't allow for cop-outs. Smoking dope and hanging up Che's picture is no more a commitment than drinking milk and collecting postage stamps. A revolution in consciousness is an empty high without a revolution in the distribution of power.
Abbie Hoffman
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I see Judaism as a way of life. Sticking up for the underdog. Being an outsider. A critic of society. The kid on the corner who says the emperor has no clothes on. The Prophet.
Abbie Hoffman
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All you kiddies remember to lay off the needle drugs, the only dope worth shooting is Richard Nixon.
Abbie Hoffman
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In this state, dig it, you get twenty years for sale of dope to a minor. You only get five to ten for manslaughter. So like, the thing is, if you're selling to a kid and cops come, shoot the kid real quick!
Abbie Hoffman
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I feel like a famous Indian Chief of the Fagowee nations, who led his tribe for 40 years in the desert amidst starvation, hunger, famine, strife, plague — finally staggered up to the top of this mountain, drug crazed, looked out and pounded his chest and said, "Where the fuck are we? Where the fuck are we?"
Abbie Hoffman
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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.
Abbie Hoffman
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My critique of democracy begins and ends with this point. Kids must be educated to disrespect authority or else democracy is a farce.
Abbie Hoffman
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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.
Abbie Hoffman
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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.
Abbie Hoffman
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The only way to support a revolution is to make your own.
Abbie Hoffman
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Hep is a very dangerous disease that can cause a number of permanent conditions, including death, which is extremely permanent.
Abbie Hoffman
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The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.
Abbie Hoffman
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Avoid all needle drugs. The only dope worth shooting is Richard Nixon.
Abbie Hoffman
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Life actors never rehearse and need no script. A life actor uses only what is available, nothing more, nothing less.
Abbie Hoffman
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Free speech is the right to shout "Theater!" in a crowded fire.
Abbie Hoffman
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Understand that legal and illegal are political, and often arbitrary, categorizations; use and abuse are medical, or clinical, distinctions.
Abbie Hoffman
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For six years, the only consistent thing about our national drug policy has been its inconsistency. Harsher penalties, urine testing, hysteria, budget cuts and the simplistic "Just Say No!' campaign (the equivalent of telling manic depressives to "just cheer up") have returned drug education and treatment to the Reefer Madness era.
Abbie Hoffman
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There is absolutely no greater high than challenging the power structure as a nobody, giving it your all, and winning. I think I've learned that lesson twice now. The essence of successful revolution, be it for an individual, a community of individuals, or a nation, depends on accepting that challenge.
Abbie Hoffman
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STRUCTURE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN CONTENT IN THE TRANSMISSION OF INFORMATION. It is the same as saying "the medium is the message."
Abbie Hoffman
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Expedience, not justice, is the rule of contemporary American law.
Abbie Hoffman
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Quote of the day
Men were only made into "men" with great difficulty even in primitive society: the male is not naturally "a man" any more than the woman. He has to be propped up into that position with some ingenuity, and is always likely to collapse.
Wyndham Lewis
Abbie Hoffman
Born:
November 30, 1936
Died:
April 12, 1989
(aged 52)
Bio:
Abbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman was an American political and social activist and anarchist who co-founded the Youth International Party.
Known for:
Steal This Book (1971)
Revolution for the hell of it (1968)
Woodstock Nation (1969)
Most used words:
revolution
democracy
life
ended
dope
people
legal
kid
society
war
years
revolutionary
drug
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