Talk:Saul Alinsky

Unsourced

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• Never do for others what they can do for themselves.
  • [1]
  • This is the "iron rule of organizing" of the Industrial Areas Foundation, but it's not clear that it came from Alinsky himself.

• 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.
  • [2]^{[dead link]}

• In a fight almost anything goes. It almost reaches the point where you stop to apologize if a chance blow lands above the belt.

• Liberals in their meetings utter bold works; they strut, grimace belligerently, and then issue a weasel-worded statement 'which has tremendous implications, if read between the lines.' They sit calmly, dispassionately, studying the issue; judging both sides; they sit and still sit.

• Power goes to two poles: to those who've got money and those who've got people.

• Society has good reason to fear the Radical. Every shaking advance of mankind toward equality and justice has come from the Radical. He hits, he hurts, he is dangerous. Conservative interests know that while Liberals are most adept at breaking their own necks with their tongues, Radicals are most adept at breaking the necks of Conservatives.

• The Radical may resort to the sword but when he does he is not filled with hatred against those individuals whom he attacks. He hates these individuals not as persons but as symbols representing ideas or interests which he believes to be inimical to the welfare of the people.

Quotes about Alinsky (unsourced)

• I do not know if Saul Alinsky knows God. But I assure you that God knows Saul Alinsky.
  • Jacques Maritain