„Nonviolent resistance is not aimed against oppressors, but against oppression.“

— Jr.
„Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. You don't need anything else.“
— Malcolm X
„[Nonviolence] is directed against forces of evil rather than against persons who happen to be doing the evil. It is evil that the nonviolent resister seeks to defeat, not the persons victimized by evil.“
— Jr.
„The third way open to oppressed people in their quest for freedom is the way of nonviolent resistance.“
— Jr.
„The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.“
— H.L. Mencken
„Non-violent resistance activities cannot succeed against an enemy that is able freely to use violence. That's pretty obvious. You can't have non-violent resistance against the Nazis in a concentration camp, to take an extreme case...“
— Noam Chomsky