“When Indian nationalists in their non-violent resistance to Britain rule permit themselves to be beaten prostrate to the ground without retaliatory acts on their part, they are exhibiting coercion and suffering in a form that is not provocative but redemptive.”

Source: Discipleship (1937), Revenge, p. 142.
Context: By willing endurance we cause suffering to pass. Evil becomes a spent force when we put up no resistance. By refusing to pay back the enemy with his own coin, and preferring to suffer without resistance, the Christian exhibits the sinfulness of contumely and insult. Violence stands condemned by its failure to evoke counter-violence.

Chronicles of Dissent, December 13, 1989 https://web.archive.org/web/20000829081348/http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/interviews/db-8912.html
Quotes 1960s–1980s, 1980s

Chronicles of Dissent, December 13, 1989 http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/interviews/db-8912.html
Quotes 1960s-1980s, 1980s
Context: Non-violent resistance activities cannot succeed against an enemy that is able freely to use violence. That's pretty obvious. You can't have non-violent resistance against the Nazis in a concentration camp, to take an extreme case...

1950s, Loving Your Enemies (November 1957)
Context: But there is another way. And that is to organize mass non-violent resistance based on the principle of love. It seems to me that this is the only way as our eyes look to the future. As we look out across the years and across the generations, let us develop and move right here. We must discover the power of love, the power, the redemptive power of love. And when we discover that we will be able to make of this old world a new world. We will be able to make men better. Love is the only way.

Source: Discipleship (1937), Revenge, p. 142

1960s, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)
Context: Nowhere have the riots won any concrete improvement such as have the organized protest demonstrations. When one tries to pin down advocates of violence as to what acts would be effective, the answers are blatantly illogical. Sometimes they talk of overthrowing racist state and local governments and they talk about guerrilla warfare. They fail to see that no internal revolution has ever succeeded in overthrowing a government by violence unless the government had already lost the allegiance and effective control of its armed forces. Anyone in his right mind knows that this will not happen in the United States. Furthermore, few, if any, violent revolutions have been successful unless the violent minority had the sympathy and support of the non-resisting majority.

Chronicles of Dissent, December 13, 1989 http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/interviews/db-8912.html
Quotes 1960s-1980s, 1980s
Context: Non-violent resistance activities cannot succeed against an enemy that is able freely to use violence. That's pretty obvious. You can't have non-violent resistance against the Nazis in a concentration camp, to take an extreme case...

Individualism and Socialism (1933)

The Power of Now (1997) p. 25