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Creativity Quote by Joan Baez

"That's all nonviolence is - organized love"

About this Quote

“Organized love” is a daring rebrand. Joan Baez takes a word that can sound passive, pious, even naïve - nonviolence - and snaps it into something muscular: logistics, discipline, coordination. Love, in her framing, isn’t a private feeling you fall into; it’s a public practice you build. The phrase is doing rhetorical judo, flipping the usual hierarchy where “real” power equals force and “soft” values equal surrender. Baez insists the opposite: nonviolence is power that has learned to aim.

The intent is both moral and tactical. By defining nonviolence as love with a plan, she strips away the caricature of peaceful protest as mere sentiment. “Organized” implies training, community infrastructure, strategy meetings, risk. It also hints at the messy truth of movements: love doesn’t magically harmonize people; it has to be structured into collective action that can withstand fear, provocation, and fatigue.

Context matters: Baez isn’t a theorist talking from the podium; she’s a singer whose career is braided with civil rights marches, anti-war activism, and the broader 1960s argument about what legitimate resistance looks like. Her credibility comes from proximity to the stakes - bodies in the street, reputations on the line, state power pushing back.

Subtextually, the line challenges cynicism. It says: if you want to dismiss love as weak, you’re misunderstanding what love becomes when it’s shared, organized, and willing to confront brutality without reproducing it.

Quote Details

TopicPeace
Source
Later attribution: The Elements of Peace (J. Frederick Arment, 2014) modern compilationISBN: 9780786491490 · ID: 0OLv7Y_6-ucC
Text match: 95.00%   Provider: Google Books
Evidence:
... That's all nonviolence is , organized love . – Joan Baez , American singer and songwriter Omnia vincit amor ; et nos cedamus amori . – Virgil , Roman poet This page intentionally left blank Appendix : The Methods and Conclusion 233.
Other candidates (1)
Chapter 17: “Or Does It Explode?” (Howard Zinn, 1980) primary60.0%
Song: "Chapter 17: “Or Does It Explode?”" by Howard Zinn
Cite

Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Baez, Joan. (2026, February 13). That's all nonviolence is - organized love. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/thats-all-nonviolence-is-organized-love-122923/

Chicago Style
Baez, Joan. "That's all nonviolence is - organized love." FixQuotes. February 13, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/thats-all-nonviolence-is-organized-love-122923/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"That's all nonviolence is - organized love." FixQuotes, 13 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/thats-all-nonviolence-is-organized-love-122923/. Accessed 25 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

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Joan Baez (born January 9, 1941) is a Musician from USA.

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