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Saul Alinsky [1909-1972] American

Rank: 101
Activist, Writer

Saul David Alinsky was an American community organizer and writer. He is generally considered to be the founder of modern community organizing. He is often noted for his 1971 book Rules for Radicals.

Change, Attitude, Chance, Communication, Death, Family, Future, Independence, Politics, Time, Travel

Quote	Tags	Rank
Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and chance the future.	Attitude, Chance, Change, Future	101
Tactics mean doing what you can with what you have.		102
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.	Death	103
We must believe that it is the darkest before the dawn of a beautiful new world. We will see it when we believe it.		104
Life is a corrupting process from the time a child learns to play his mother off against his father in the politics of when to go to bed; he who fears corruption fears life.	Politics, Time	105
The organizer dedicated to changing the life of a particular community must first rub raw the resentments of the people of the community.		106
A racially integrated community is a chronological term timed from the entrance of the first black family to the exit of the last white family.	Family	107
Change means movement. Movement means friction. Only in the frictionless vacuum of a nonexistent abstract world can movement or change occur without that abrasive friction of conflict.	Change	108
First rule of change is controversy. You can't get away from it for the simple reason all issues are controversial. Change means movement, and movement means friction, and friction means heat, and heat means controversy.		109
Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.		110
Always remember the first rule of power tactics; power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.		111
History is a relay of revolutions.		112
The job of the organizer is to maneuver and bait the establishment so that it will publicly attack him as a 'dangerous enemy.'		113
As an organizer, I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be. That we accept the world as it is does not in any sense weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be - it is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be. That means working in the system.		114
The first step in community organization is community disorganization.		115
The greatest enemy of individual freedom is the individual himself.		116
Last guys don't finish nice.		117
'The Prince' was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. 'Rules for Radicals' is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.		118
Mankind has been and is divided into three parts: the Haves, the Have-Nots, and the Have-a-Little, Want Mores.		119
There can be no darker or more devastating tragedy than the death of man's faith in himself and in his power to direct his future.		120
Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.		121
Everybody owned stock in the Capone mob; in a way, he was a public benefactor. I remember one time when he arrived at his box seat in Dyche Stadium for a Northwestern football game on Boy Scout Day, and 8,000 scouts got up in the stands and screamed in cadence, 'Yea, yea, Big Al. Yea, yea, Big Al.'		122
Radicals must be resilient, adaptable to shifting political circumstances, and sensitive enough to the process of action and reaction to avoid being trapped by their own tactics and forced to travel a road not of their choosing. In short, radicals must have a degree of control over the flow of events.	Travel	123
If the ends don't justify the means, what does?		124
I've never joined any organization - not even the ones I've organized myself. I prize my own independence too much.	Independence	125
The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.		126
No politician can sit on a hot issue if you make it hot enough.		201
Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.		202
A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.		203
The Capone gang was actually a public utility; it supplied what the people wanted and demanded.		204
To the organizer, compromise is a key and beautiful word. It is always present in the pragmatics of operation... If you start with nothing, demand 100 percent, then compromise for 30 percent, you're 30 percent ahead.		205
All change means disorganization of the old and organization of the new.		206
If the real radical finds that having long hair sets up psychological barriers to communication and organization, he cuts his hair. If I were organizing in an orthodox Jewish community, I would not walk in there eating a ham sandwich unless I wanted to be rejected so I could have an excuse to cop out.	Communication	207
People cannot be free unless they are willing to sacrifice some of their interests to guarantee the freedom of others. The price of democracy is the ongoing pursuit of the common good by all of the people.		208
It does not matter what you know about anything if you cannot communicate to your people. In that event, you are not even a failure. You're just not there.		209
My only fixed truth is a belief in people: a conviction that if people have the opportunity to act freely and the power to control their own destinies, they'll generally reach the right decisions.		210

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