Dissident

About Dissident

“This is the bitterest pain among men, to have much knowledge but no power.”
— Herodotus, The Histories, Book 9, Ch. 16, c. 430 BC.
“Has there ever been a society which has died of dissent? Several have died of conformity in our lifetime.”
— Jacob Bronowski, Science and Human Values (1956, 1965), Part 3: "The Sense of Human Dignity", §5.
“Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionaries and rebels—men and women who dared to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.”
— Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech at Columbia University's bicentennial, 31 May 1954, Public papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower (1961), p. 524.
“[Dissents are] appeals to the brooding spirit of the law, to the intelligence of another day.”
— Charles Evans Hughes, reported in "Keeping Politics out of the Court", The New York Times (December 9, 1984); quoted in The HarperCollins Dictionary of American Government and Politics (1992) by Jay M. Shafritz, p. 407.
“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty.”
— Edward R. Murrow, , broadcast of 9 March 1954 on CBS TV.
“Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward.”
— Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience (1849).

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.