Top 40 Abbie Hoffman Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”

— Abbie Hoffman

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2. “Structure is more important than content in the transmission of information.”

— Abbie Hoffman

3. “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

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4. “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

5. “Nostalgia is a form of depression both for a society and an individual.”

— Abbie Hoffman

6. “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

7. “It’s too late. We can’t win, they’ve gotten too powerful.”

— Abbie Hoffman

8. “Free speech means the right to shout ‘theatre’ in a crowded fire.”

— Abbie Hoffman

9. “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

10. “I believe in compulsory cannibalism. If people were forced to eat what they killed, there would be no more wars.”

— Abbie Hoffman

11. “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

12. “Action is the only reality; not only reality, but morality as well.”

— Abbie Hoffman

13. “Smoking dope and hanging up Che’s picture is no more a commitment than drinking milk and collecting postage stamps.”

— Abbie Hoffman

14. “Fantasy is the only truth.”

— Abbie Hoffman

15. “The best way to educate oneself is to become part of the revolution.”

— Abbie Hoffman

16. “The only reason you should be in college is to destroy it.”

— Abbie Hoffman

17. “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

18. “You measure a democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.”

— Abbie Hoffman

19. “What if when they called a war, no one went?”

— Abbie Hoffman

20. “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

21. “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

22. “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

23. “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

24. “Once you get the right image the details aren’t that important.”

— Abbie Hoffman

25. “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

26. “There is absolutely no greater high than challenging the power structure as a nobody, giving it your all, and winning!”

— Abbie Hoffman

27. “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

28. “The only way to support a revolution is to make your own.”

— Abbie Hoffman

29. “Avoid all needle drugs, the only dope worth shooting is Richard Nixon.”

— Abbie Hoffman

30. “When decorum is repression, the only dignity free men have is to speak out.”

— Abbie Hoffman

31. “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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32. “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

33. “Never impose your language on people you wish to reach.”

— Abbie Hoffman

34. “Understand that legal and illegal are political, and often arbitrary, categorizations; use and abuse are medical, or clinical, distinctions.”

— Abbie Hoffman

35. “The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.”

— Abbie Hoffman

36. “Life actors never rehearse and need no script. A life actor uses only what is available, nothing more, nothing less.”

— Abbie Hoffman

37. “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

38. “Random political acts produce random political results. Why waste even a rock?”

— Abbie Hoffman

39. “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

40. “I was probably the only revolutionary referred to as cute.”

— Abbie Hoffman

41. “A modern revolutionary group heads for the television station.”

— Abbie Hoffman

42. “Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger.”

— Abbie Hoffman

43. “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

44. “Hep is a very dangerous disease that can cause a number of permanent conditions, including death, which is extremely permanent.”

— Abbie Hoffman

45. “Expedience, not justice, is the rule of contemporary American law.”

— Abbie Hoffman

46. “The work that the kids saw around them was so odious, so boring, so worthless that they came to regard WORK as the only dirty four-letter word in the English language.”

— Abbie Hoffman

47. “I’ve had some good times, had some bad. Took some lumps. Scored some points. Half-way through life, at 43, I still say, ‘go for broke.’ No government, no FBI, no judge, no jailer is ever gonna make me say ‘uncle.’ Now, as then, let the game continue. I bet my stake on freedom’s call; I’ll play these cards with no regrets.”

— Abbie Hoffman

48. “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

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49. “Democracy is not something you believe in or hang your hat on, but something you do. You participate. If you stop doing it, democracy crumbles and falls. If you participate, the future is yours.”

— Abbie Hoffman