Assent -- and you are sane -- , demur -- you're straightway dangerous -- , and handled with a Chain -- .

You do not become a "dissident" just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society.

The beginning of thought is in disagreement -- not only with others but also with ourselves.

The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself.