When the mayor of Sao Paulo wanted to increase bus fare by 21 centavos in 2013, the country erupted in the largest mass protests in its history. It wasn't a dramatic hike - just nine cents - but a perfect symbol of the increasing burdens on the working poor, forced to fend with an inadequate system, insensitive to their plight.

Franklin Foer

Mass protests often get books or films banned, but very few people take to the streets to challenge the right of the State to decide what we can read or watch - it's still someone else's problem.

Abhijit Banerjee

Demonstrations must be dignified and nonviolent, as the overwhelming protests in Ferguson and Staten Island have been. Do not confuse anarchists who don't want the system to work and thugs who want to exploit a situation with the majority who from day one have operated with impeccable nonviolence and clear goals.

Al Sharpton

In 1999, I was in St. Louis with Martin Luther King III as we led protests against the state's failure to hire minority contractors for highway construction projects. We went at dawn on a summer day with over a thousand people and performed acts of civil disobedience.

Al Sharpton

We have witnessed the terrible increases in the incidence of alcoholism, the advent of drug dependency, the protests, marches, strikes and human alienation.

Alex Campbell

Protest is OK. But protests, according to my King family legacy, should be peaceful.

Alveda King

There was no doubt that sooner or later we will fight. But we will fight not in the way of the dissidents' protests. We understood that we needed to be as professional as possible.

Anatoly Chubais

When counterterrorist policies are used to suppress peaceful protests and legitimate opposition movements, shut down debate, target human rights defenders, or stigmatize minorities, they fail, and we all lose. Indeed, such responses may cause further resentment and instability and contribute to radicalization.

Antonio Guterres

The president welcomes peaceful protests - it is a time-honored tradition. The president agrees violence is not the answer in Iraq, and that's why he hopes Saddam Hussein will disarm.

Ari Fleischer

Non-violent protests have reached a plateau. There is no other way but to get into politics to make your voice heard.

Atishi

The Benghazi attack was one of the more confusing, chaotic days that we had at work because you had these multiple violent protests taking place in the Middle East.

Ben Rhodes

The Occupy Wall Street protests are shining a national spotlight on the most powerful, dangerous and secretive economic and political force in America.

Bernie Sanders

As a life-long liberal who has engaged in protests against the government and for civil rights, I am saddened at efforts by some of my fellow liberals to silence commencement speakers with whom they might disagree on some issues.

Bob Beckel

I understand the protests, but not the shooting and the attempts to bring down the state. We cannot allow hatred to control our lives. We must remain unified to defeat this evil.

Boris Trajkovski

The protests and pain over the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown had me wondering if we can ever experience the world as others do. For no matter how disputed the circumstances of both cases, many people see what happened in black and white.

Campbell Brown

Anybody who walks out peacefully, who protests peacefully, that's what this country was built on.

Charles Barkley

I've heard a lot of people say you need white athletes to get involved in the anthem protests. I've said before I'll never kneel for an anthem, because the flag means something different for everybody in this country, but I support my peers.

Chris Long

Non-violent protests are signs of a healthy democracy, not an ailing one.

Christopher A. Wray

As a left-wing campaigner for 35 years, I've been arrested on picket lines, led anti-imperialist demonstrations and spoken at anti-deportation protests outside police stations. I've made speeches at street rallies, in prisons and universities and at pubs.

Claire Fox

Rallies, marches on Washington, protests, et al. are pointless if there is no action to make them mean something.

Dana Loesch

The only thing I wish I had kept were all the peace beads, because in the 1960s people made these and hung them at protests and it was a wonderful thing.

David Selby