Quotes from book
Steal This Book

Steal This Book

Steal This Book is a book written by Abbie Hoffman. Written in 1970 and published in 1971, the book exemplified the counterculture of the sixties. The book sold more than a quarter of a million copies between April and November 1971.The book is, in the style of the counterculture, mainly focused on ways to fight the government, and against corporations in any way possible. The book is written in the form of a guide to the youth. Hoffman, a political and social activist himself, used many of his own activities as the inspiration for some of his advice in Steal This Book.


Abbie Hoffman photo
Abbie Hoffman photo

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

Introduction, p. v.
Source: Steal This Book (1971)
Context: 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.

Abbie Hoffman photo

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

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.
Source: Steal This Book
Context: 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 photo
Abbie Hoffman photo
Abbie Hoffman photo
Abbie Hoffman photo
Abbie Hoffman photo

“It's perhaps fitting that I write this introduction in jail.”

Introduction.
Steal This Book (1971)

Abbie Hoffman photo

“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.

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