Top 53 Abbie Hoffman Quotes
#1. During the Vietnam War, Abbie Hoffman announced that the new high was banana peels taken rectally. So then FBI scientists stuffed banana peels up their asses to find out if this was true or not.
Kurt Vonnegut
#2. A modern revolutionary group, explained Abbie Hoffman, headed for the television station, not the factory.
Mark Kurlansky
#3. MR. WEINGLASS: Between the date of your birth, November 30, 1936, and May 1, 1960, what if anything occurred in your life?
HOFFMAN: Nothing. I believe it is called an American education.
-from the Chicago 7 trial
Abbie Hoffman
#4. If you don't have sex and you don't do drugs, your rock 'n' roll better be awfully good.
Abbie Hoffman
#5. When decorum is repression, the only dignity free men have is to speak out.
Abbie Hoffman
#6. Nostalgia is a form of depression both for a society and an individual.
Abbie Hoffman
#7. Wouldn't you want to be indicted by the govenment for a high crime? It's a great thrill. It's an honor. It's a compliment. It's fun. I'm enjoying every minute of it!
Abbie Hoffman
#8. The best way to educate oneself is to become part of the revolution.
Abbie Hoffman
#9. Hep is a very dangerous disease that can cause a number of permanent conditions, including death, which is extremely permanent.
Abbie Hoffman
#10. I think we are constantly faced with the same decision. The decision to be blindly obedient to authority versus the decision to try and change things by fighting the powers that be is always, throughout history, the only decision.
Abbie Hoffman
#11. I was probably the only revolutionary referred to as cute.
Abbie Hoffman
#12. I think the greatest legacy of the 1960s was the general feeling that not only can you fight the powers that be, but you can win.
Abbie Hoffman
#13. The 60's are gone, dope will never be as cheap, sex never as free, and the rock and roll never as great.
Abbie Hoffman
#14. Peace is a very complicated concept. When the lion gobbles up the lamb and wipes his lips, then there's peace. Well, I ain't for that peace at all.
Abbie Hoffman
#15. Smoking dope and hanging up Che's picture is no more a
commitment than drinking milk and collecting postage stamps.
Abbie Hoffman
#16. The only way to support a revolution is to make your own.
Abbie Hoffman
#17. A modern revolutionary group heads for the television station.
Abbie Hoffman
#18. Expedience, not justice, is the rule of contemporary American law.
Abbie Hoffman
#19. When I appear in the Chicago courtroom, I want to be tried not because I support the NLF - which I do - but because I have long hair.
Abbie Hoffman
#20. Structure is more important than content in the transmission of information.
Abbie Hoffman
#21. Ou just get stoned, get the ideas in your head and then do 'em. And don't bullshit. I mean that's the thing about doin' that guerrilla theatre. You be prepared to die to prove your point.
Abbie Hoffman
#22. 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.
Abbie Hoffman
#23. Understand that legal and illegal are political, and often arbitrary, categorizations; use and abuse are medical, or clinical, distinctions.
Abbie Hoffman
#24. You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.
Abbie Hoffman
#25. The first duty of a revolutionist is to get away with it. The second duty is to eat breakfast. I ain't going.
Abbie Hoffman
#26. It's embarrassing ... you try to overthrow the government and you wind up on the Best Seller's List.
Abbie Hoffman
#28. Democracy is not something you believe in or a place to hang your hat, but it's something you do. You participate. If you stop doing it, democracy crumbles.
Abbie Hoffman
#29. The key to organizing an alternative society is to organize people around what they can do, and more importantly, what they want to do.
Abbie Hoffman
#31. Action is the only reality; not only reality, but morality as well.
Abbie Hoffman
#32. Never impose your language on people you wish to reach.
Abbie Hoffman
#33. The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.
Abbie Hoffman
#34. Free speech means the right to shout 'theatre' in a crowded fire.
Abbie Hoffman
#35. I just want to do what has to be done so much. I'll never understand why everyone else doesn't feel this way.
Abbie Hoffman
#37. It's too late. We can't win, they've gotten too powerful.
Abbie Hoffman
#38. The idea that media is there to educate us, or to inform us, is ridiculous because that's about tenth or eleventh on their list.
Abbie Hoffman
#39. My critique of democracy begins and ends with this point. Kids must be educated to disrespect authority or else democracy is a farce.
Abbie Hoffman
#40. Random political acts produce random political results. Why waste even a rock?
Abbie Hoffman
#41. There is absolutely no greater high than challenging the power structure as a nobody, giving it your all, and winning!
Abbie Hoffman
#43. 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.
Abbie Hoffman
#44. It's going to be a combination Scopes trial, revolution in the streets, Woodstock Festival and People's Park, all rolled into one.
Abbie Hoffman
#45. Life actors never rehearse and need no script. A life actor uses only what is available, nothing more, nothing less.
Abbie Hoffman
#46. Every rock or molotov cocktail thrown should make a very obvious political point. Random violence produces random propaganda results. Why waste even a rock?
Abbie Hoffman
#47. 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!
Abbie Hoffman
#48. Maintain a sense of humor. People who take themselves too seriously are power-crazy. If they win it will be haircuts for all. Beware of power freaks.
Abbie Hoffman
#49. Once you get the right image the details aren't that important.
Abbie Hoffman
#50. Lay off the needle drugs. The only dope worth shooting is Richard Nixon.
Abbie Hoffman
#51. I believe in compulsory cannibalism. If people were forced to eat what they killed, there would be no more wars.
Abbie Hoffman
#52. 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.
Abbie Hoffman
#53. I learned one thing; you never do anything for fame or money. You only do things 'cause they're fun or good. If you can combine the two at the same time, you can make a contribution to the world and have a lot of happiness.
Abbie Hoffman
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