Abbie Hoffman
From Wikiquote
Abbott Howard "Abbie" Hoffman (30 November 1936 – 12 April 1989) was a social and political activist in the United States, co-founder of the Youth International Party ("Yippies"), and later, a fugitive from the law, who lived under an alias following a conviction for dealing cocaine.
Contents
Quotes[edit]
Harsher penalties, urine testing, hysteria, budget cuts and the simplistic "Just Say No!' campaign (the equivalent of telling manic depressives to "just cheer up") have returned drug education and treatment to the Reefer Madness era.
- The first duty of a revolutionist is to get away with it. The second duty is to eat breakfast. I ain't going.
- Spoken to police immediately prior to his arrest at the Lincoln Hotel Restaurant in Chicago (August 1968), quoting himself in "Creating the Perfect Mess" (1 September 1968) in Revolution for the Hell of It (1968); also quoted in Abbie Hoffman : American Rebel (1992) by Marty Jezer.
- All you kiddies remember to lay off the needle drugs, the only dope worth shooting is Richard Nixon.
- "God Bless America — Shoot Nixon", on the spoken word album Wake Up America! (1970).
- In this state, dig it, you get twenty years for sale of dope to a minor. You only get five to ten for manslaughter. So like, the thing is, if you're selling to a kid and cops come, shoot the kid real quick!
- "Chicago", on the spoken word album Wake Up America! (1970).
- I feel like a famous Indian Chief of the Fagowee nations, who led his tribe for 40 years in the desert amidst starvation, hunger, famine, strife, plague — finally staggered up to the top of this mountain, drug crazed, looked out and pounded his chest and said, "Where the fuck are we? Where the fuck are we?"
- Wake Up America! (1970).
- I only regret that I have but one shirt to give for my country.
- Post-trial statement (modeled after a quote by American revolutionary Nathan Hale), after being declared guilty of flag desecration for wearing a shirt that resembled an American flag (1968), quoted in "The Trial of Abbie Hoffman's Shirt" in The Huffington Post (8 June 2005).
- If this guy is God, then this is the God that the United States of America deserves.
- Comment about Maharaji Ji - video (1973).
- For six years, the only consistent thing about our national drug policy has been its inconsistency. Harsher penalties, urine testing, hysteria, budget cuts and the simplistic "Just Say No!' campaign (the equivalent of telling manic depressives to "just cheer up") have returned drug education and treatment to the Reefer Madness era.
- You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.
- Tikkun (July-August 1989); also quoted in The Best Liberal Quotes Ever : Why the Left is Right (2004) by William P. Martin, p. 51.
- I see Judaism as a way of life. Sticking up for the underdog. Being an outsider. A critic of society. The kid on the corner who says the emperor has no clothes on. The Prophet.
- Tikkun (July-August 1989).
- In the nineteen-sixties, apartheid was driven out of America. Legal segregation — Jim Crow — ended. We didn't end racism, but we ended legal segregation. We ended the idea that you can send a million soldiers ten thousand miles away to fight in a war that people do not support. We ended the idea that women are second-class citizens. Now, it doesn't matter who sits in the Oval Office. But the big battles that were won in that period of civil war and strife you cannot reverse. We were young, we were reckless, arrogant, silly, headstrong … and we were right! I regret nothing!
- Closing words from his last speech, Vanderbilt University (April 1989).
- Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger.
- As quoted in The New York Times (20 April 1989), though nuanced by Hoffman, this is probably derived from an anonymous saying recorded in Encyclopedia of Graffiti (1974) by Robert George Reisner and Lorraine Wechsler as "Sacred cows make great hamburgers".
- It's embarrassing when you try to overthrow the government and you wind up on the Best Seller's List.
- On the success of his book, Steal This Book, as quoted in Steal This Book Too! (2004) by Sean Curtis.
- Become an internationalist and learn to respect all life. Make war on machines. And in particular the sterile machines of corporate death and the robots that guard them.
- The "Steal Yourself Rich" Book (1971), p. v.
- Nostalgia is a form of depression both for a society and an individual.
- Bye-Bye Sixties, Hollywood-Style, Square Dancing in the Ice Age (1982).
Revolution for the Hell of It (1968)[edit]
- STRUCTURE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN CONTENT IN THE TRANSMISSION OF INFORMATION. It is the same as saying "the medium is the message."
- p. 109, quoting the famous statement of Marshall McLuhan.
- THE KEY TO ORGANIZING AN ALTERNATIVE SOCIETY IS TO ORGANIZE PEOPLE AROUND WHAT THEY CAN DO AND MORE IMPORTANTLY WHAT THEY WANT TO DO.
- p. 135.
- You ask, "What about the innocent bystanders?" But we are in a time of revolution. If you are a bystander, you are not innocent.
- p. 183.
- TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE
- p. 184.
- The best way to educate oneself is to become part of the revolution.
- p. 184.
- I believe in compulsory cannibalism. If people were forced to eat what they killed, there would be no more wars.
- p. 187.
- The only way to support a revolution is to make your own.
- p. 188.
Steal This Book (1971)[edit]
- It's perhaps fitting that I write this introduction in jail.
- Introduction.
- To steal from a brother or sister is evil. To not steal from the institutions that are the pillars of the Pig Empire is equally immoral.
- Introduction, p. iv.
- Your body is just one in a mass of cuddly humanity. Become an internationalist and learn to respect all life. Make war on machines. And in particular the sterile machines of corporate death and the robots that guard them. The duty of a revolutionary is to make love and that means staying alive and free. That doesn't allow for cop-outs. Smoking dope and hanging up Che's picture is no more a commitment than drinking milk and collecting postage stamps. A revolution in consciousness is an empty high without a revolution in the distribution of power.
- Introduction, p. v.
- Usually when you ask somebody in college why they are there, they'll tell you it's to get an education. The truth of it is, they are there to get the degree so that they can get ahead in the rat race. Too many college radicals are two-timing punks.
- "Free Education".
Soon to be a Major Motion Picture (1980)[edit]
- My critique of democracy begins and ends with this point. Kids must be educated to disrespect authority or else democracy is a farce.
- p. 64.
- A modern revolutionary group heads for the television station, not the factory. It concentrates its energy on infiltrating and changing the image system.
- p. 86
- Free speech is the right to shout "Theater!" in a crowded fire.
- p. 214.
- There is absolutely no greater high than challenging the power structure as a nobody, giving it your all, and winning. I think I've learned that lesson twice now. The essence of successful revolution, be it for an individual, a community of individuals, or a nation, depends on accepting that challenge.
- p. 297.
- Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit. When all today's isms have become yesterday's ancient philosophy, there will still be reactionaries and there will still be revolutionaries. No amount of rationalization can avoid the moment of choice each of us brings to our situation here on the planet. I still believe in the fundamental injustice of the profit system and do not accept the proposition there will be rich and poor for all eternity.
- p. 297.
Disputed[edit]
- I was probably the only revolutionary referred to as cute.
- Cited as being in Soon to be a Major Motion Picture (1980) p. 222, this does not appear accessible for verification in online scans of this book. So someone needs to go to the library.
The quote is "I was probably the only professed revolutionary ever referred to as "cute." It is on the page cited. I have a copy of the book.
External links[edit]
- Abbie Hoffman's Spirit Is Alive
- Scans of Abbie Hoffman's writing in The Realist during formation of the Yippie movement, including call to others to meet in Chicago.
