“We will not know unless we begin.”
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Author detail
Howard Zinn (August 24, 1922 – January 27, 2010) was an American historian, playwright, and socialist thinker. He was chair of the history and social sciences department at Spelman College, and a political science professor at Boston University. Zinn wrote over 20 books, including his best-selling and influential A People's History of the United States. In 2007, he published a version of it for younger readers, *A Young People's History of the United States*. Zinn described himself as "something of an anarchist, something of a socialist. Maybe a democratic socialist." He wrote extensively about the Civil Rights Movement, the anti-war movement and labor history of the United States. His memoir, *You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train* (Beacon Press, 2002), was also the title of a 2004 documentary about Zinn's life and work. Zinn died of a heart attack in 2010, at age 87. **Source**: [Howard Zinn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Zinn) on Wikipedia.
Quotes
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“We will not know unless we begin.”
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“They have the guns, we have the poets. Therefore, we will win.”
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“TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness....”
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“But human beings are not machines, and however powerful the pressure to conform, they sometimes are so moved by what they see as injustice that they dare to declare their independence. In th...”
“The willingness to undertake such action cannot be based on certainties, but on those possibilities glimpsed in a reading of history different from the customary painful recounting of human...”
“The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
“I am supposing, or perhaps only hoping, that our future may be found in the past's fugitive moments of compassion rather than in its solid centuries of warfare.”
“Before God and high heaven, is there a law for one man which is not a law for every other man?”
“There is a power that can be created out of pent-up indignation, courage, and the inspiration of a common cause, and that if enough people put their minds and bodies into that cause, they ca...”
“That chain of relationships made me think of how connections are made--you read a book, you meet a person, you have a single experience, and your life is changed in some way. No act, therefo...”
“Education becomes most rich and alive when it confronts the reality of moral conflict in the world.”
“I had always insisted that a good education was a synthesis of book learning and involvement in social action, that each enriched the other. I wanted my students to know that the accumulatio...”
“One certain effect of war is to diminish freedom of expression.”
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“Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”
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“Most wars, after all, present themselves as humanitarian endeavors to help people.”
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“Americans have been taught that their nation is civilized and humane. But, too often, U.S. actions have been uncivilized and inhumane.”
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“We need to decide that we will not go to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war...”
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“There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.”
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“In the United States today, the Declaration of Independence hangs on schoolroom walls, but foreign policy follows Machiavelli.”
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“When people don't understand that the government doesn't have their interests in mind, they're more susceptible to go to war.”
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