Passive resistance

“ Passive resistance calls the use of the physical weapon in the hands of man the most cowardly thing in life.” Passive resistance teaches men to resist heroically the might and injustice of the untrue and unrighteous. But they must fight with moral and spiritual weapons. They must resist tyranny with forbearance, hatred with love, wrong with right, and injustice with faith. “To hurl back the cowardly weapon of the wicked and the unjust is useless. Let it fall. Bear your suffering with patience. Place your faith in the strength of the divine soul of man.” ”

“ Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance. ”

“ And, if such a use of force is justifiable, surely he is entitled to do likewise by us. And so we should never come to an agreement. We may simply fancy, like the blind horse moving in a circle round a mill, that we are making progress. Those who believe that they are not bound to obey laws which are repugnant to their conscience have only the remedy of passive resistance open to them. Any other must lead to disaster.
Reader: From what you say, I deduce that passive resistance is a splendid weapon of the weak but that, when they are strong, they may take up arms. ”

“ Believe me that a man devoid of courage and manhood can never be a passive resister.
This, however, I will admit: that even a man, weak in body, is capable of offering this resistance. One man can offer it just as well as millions. Both men and women can indulge in it. It does not require the training of an army; it needs no Jiu-jitsu. Control over the mind is alone necessary, and, when that is attained, man is free like the king of the forest, and his very glance withers the enemy.
Passive resistance is an all-sided sword ”

“ The soul of his ideal is resistance, and he resists in the most heroic and forceful manner.” The only difference between his heroism and our common conception of the word is in the choice of the weapon. His main doctrine is to avoid violence and to substitute for physical force the forces of love, faith, and sacrifice. “Passive resistance resists, but not blow for blow. ”

“ As a passive resistor I discovered that a passive resister has to make good his claim to passive resistance, no matter under what circumstances he finds himself, and I discovered that the British Empire had certain ideals with which I have fallen in love, and one of those ideals is that every subject of the British Empire has the freest scope possible for his energies and honour and whatever he thinks is due to his conscience. ”

“ And he wanted them to believe him when he told them that Passive Resistance pure and simple was an infinitely finer weapon than all the sticks and gunpowder put together. They might strike work, but they might compel nobody else to strike work, and, if, as a result of their strike, they were sentenced to be imprisoned, whipped, or to both, they must suffer even unto death—that was Passive Resistance, nothing else. Nothing else, and nothing less than that, would satisfy the requirements of Passive Resistance. ”

“ All these points are covered by the settlement of the last year, which I consider to be a complete vindication of the passive resistance, and I venture to state that if more has not been gained more was not and could not be asked for as an item in the passive resistance, for a passive resister has to frame his minimum as well as his maximum, and he dare not ask for more nor can he be satisfied with less. ”

“ It is the true spirit of passive resistance that has brought me to the above almost definite conclusions. As a passive resister, I am unconcerned whether such a gigantic, reformation, shall I call it, can be brought about among people who find their satisfaction from the present mad rush. ”

“ To become a passive resister is easy enough, but it is also equally difficult. I have known a lad of fourteen years become a passive resister; I have known also sick people doing likewise and I have also known physically strong and otherwise happy people being unable to take up passive resistance. After a great deal of experience, it seems to me that those who want to become passive resisters for the service of the country have to observe perfect chastity, adopt poverty, follow truth, and cultivate fearlessness. ”

“ Passive resistance is a method of securing rights by personal suffering; it is the reverse of resistance by arms. When I refuse to do a thing that is repugnant to my conscience, I use soul-force. For instance, the Government of the day has passed a law which is applicable to me. I do not like it. If by using violence I force the Government to repeal the law. I am employing what may be termed body-force. If I do not obey the law and accept the penalty for its breach, I use soul-force. It involves sacrifice of self. ”

“ Passive resistance is the suspension of activity relative to the temptation till it ends of itself, as when internally the will neither consents nor dissents, or externally nothing is done for or against the temptation. Active resistance is positive opposition offered to temptation. ”

“ To guard and preserve your own will is right; to seek to impose your will upon that of another is wrong. Passive resistance is often the strongest form of resistance—this is quite different from non-resistance. ”

“ The chief difference between passive resistance and non-resistance is this: passive resistance is regarded by its champions as a mere policy, while non-resistance is viewed by those who favor it as a principle or universal rule. Believers in passive resistance consider it as generally more effective than active resistance, but think that there are certain cases in which the opposite is true ; believers in non-resistance consider either that it is immoral to actively resist or else that it is always unwise to do so. ”

“ He is obstinate, and by mere long, tedious, passive resistance will often get the better in a bargain. By the employment of similar methods however, it is not difficult to obtain one's way in the end. ”

“ The armies and navies of the world are kept up by three causes: cowardice, love of dominion, and lust for blood. (§ 3 ¶ 5)
It is cowardice that makes it difficult to meet invasion by the method of passive resistance. More courage and discipline are needed for the successful practice of this method than for facing death in the heat of battle. But I am persuaded that there is in England enough courage and enough capacity for discipline to make success in passive resistance possible if education and moral teaching were directed to that end instead of to warlike prowess. ”

“ The essential preliminary to any useful discussion of passive resistance is the clear recognition of the fact that it is rebellion, and nothing less. To say, or admit, this is not necessarily to condemn it; for there are few persons to-day, I suppose, who would contend that rebellion is never justifiable. ”

“ Many such instances can be found in India. Real Home Rule is possible only where passive resistance is the guiding force of the people. Any other rule is foreign rule.
Reader: Then you will say that it is not at all necessary for us to train the body?
Editor: I will certainly not say any such thing. It is difficult to become a passive resister unless the body is trained. As a rule, the mind, residing in a body that has become weakened by pampering, is also weak, and where there is no strength of mind there can be no strength of soul. ”

“ It is a struggle; for though the black man fights passively, he nevertheless fights; and his passive resistance is more effective at present than active resistance could possibly be. He bears the fury of the storm as does the willow tree. ”

“ Now, if we want to overcome the enemy by the duration of the contest, we must content ourselves with as small objects as possible, for it is in the nature of the thing that a great end requires a greater expenditure of force than a small one; but the smallest object that we can propose to ourselves is simple passive resistance, that is a combat without any positive view. ”

“ The first and last principle of passive resistance is that we should not inflict hardship on others but put up with them ourselves in order to get justice, and the Government need not fear anything if we make up our mind as we are bent on getting sheer justice from it and nothing else. ”

“ As a final proof, we may make him lie down, in the manner described on page 153; when it will be easy to see whether he be actuated by a plucky spirit, or by a sullen disposition, which will, always, cause him to adopt a policy of passive resistance. ”

“ We have but one more process to undergo, and the attendant already stands at the head of our couch. This is the course of passive gymnastics, which excites so much alarm and resistance in the ignorant Franks. It is only resistance that is dangerous, completely neutralizing the enjoyment of the process. ”

“ Something, indeed, might have been said in favour of the doctrines of passive obedience and non-resistance, at the time when they were first started; but a man must be infatuated who will not renounce them now. ”

“ In the late debates about passive obedience and the right of resistance, the sole point in controversy among men of sense was whether universal submission would probably be attended with greater evils than temporary insurrections when privileges were invaded. ”

“ No human being can long endure such strain upon the system. If I were certain of the ground I ought to take, if my resistance could be a settled thing, then my mind might concentrate upon it—but no, every day the attacks change character and leave me without defence ”

“ Force we may define as physical or intangible power or influence to effect change in the material or immaterial world. Coercion is the use of either physical or intangible force to compel action contrary to the will or reasoned judgment of the individual or group subjected to such force. Violence is the willful application of force in such a way that it is physically or psychologically injurious to the person or group against whom it is applied. Resistance is any opposition either physical or psychological to the positive will or action of another. ”

“ Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. ”

“ It is equally plain that nature necessitates aggression as certainly as it does injurious resistance to aggression; that in fact it necessitates neither; and that non-resistance, as I have defined it, is no more contrary to nature than non-aggression. Both aggressive and resistant injury can be unlearned, abandoned, and forever eschewed, without annihilating or perverting any essential constituent, element, property, quality or capability of human beings. More than this, men brought up to that moral excellency will be more thoroughly and perfectly men than in any inferior state. ”

“ The utter uselessness of resistance was very plain, and, reckless as the fellow might have proven if opportunity served, he realized now clearly enough that death would probably be the penalty of refusal. ”

“ You say injurious resistance, war and bloodshed will never cease till aggression cease! Will aggression ever cease? Can it ever cease? Is it not a necessary result of the laws of nature? What is the conclusion from such premises, but this - that man's nature obliges him to aggress and resist just as he does, and there is no hope that he will ever cease doing either. ”

“ But the extreme hollowness of the objection before us becomes at once obvious, when I turn the tables, and demand whether the practice of injurious resistance offers immunity from extreme trial, danger, hardship and suffering? How happens it that human beings enough to people from eighteen to forty such globes as ours, have perished in war? ”

“ Whatever law deviates from this principle will always meet with a resistance, which will destroy it in the end; for the smallest force, continually applied, will overcome the most violent motion communicated to bodies. ”

“ It was to get the better of our assailants, and, having done so, to take exactly those steps which we should then consider necessary to our present and future safety. The more obstinate the resistance, the more completely must it be subdued. ”

“ Belligerent measures, too, must come, not from subordinates, but from those empowered to command, and be commensurate only with the opposing array,-the persons, places, and causes where resistance flagrante bello exists of the reckless character justifying violence and a disregard of all ordinary securities and laws. ”

“ Coercing the Tuscans by Austrian bayonets was like herding a flock of sheep with bull-dogs. I never saw a people who so little require the use of strong measures; the difficulty of ruling them lies not in their spirit of resistance, but in its very opposite,—a plastic facility of temper that gives way to every pressure. Just like a horse with an over-fine mouth, you never can have him in hand, and never know that he has stumbled till he is down. ”

“ If the first be our object, and resistance is offered to us, how foolish to leave our enemies the means of resisting us with success? how weak to spare men who have done all they could to slay us, or women and children, by which the race of our adversaries may be kept up and increased? ”