quotations about revolution
Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals that they may be superior. Such is the state of mind which creates revolutions.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
A small revolution was taking place, so modest and well behaved that almost no one had noticed.
J. G. BALLARD
Millennium People
Revolutions are not isolated, sporadic events. Over the millennium, their power and ideas have been propagated through poems, newspapers, books and also music.
HT CORRESPONDENT
"Someone has made a brilliant dubstep mix of Kanhaiya's sloganeering", Hindustan Times, February 23, 2016
If a revolution destroys a systematic government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves in the succeeding government.
ROBERT M. PIRSIG
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The revolution you dream of is not ours. You don't want to change the world, you want to blow it up.
JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
Dirty Hands
In general, the vitality and relative dignity of an animal can be measured by the intensity of its instinct to revolt.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
"On the International Workingmen's Association and Karl Marx"
Beauty goes to her address
She shuts the door and climbs the stairs
And when she sleeps the revolution grows
DAVID BYRNE
"The Revolution"
Revolutions are never easy, especially when they hinge on getting Republicans to change their minds.
DAVID NIR
"Imagine Bernie Sanders wins the White House. Then What?", Daily Kos, February 21, 2016
Fantasy. Lunacy. All revolutions are, until they happen, then they are historical inevitabilities.
DAVID MITCHELL
Cloud Atlas
The moving spirits of revolutions are deemed holy or unholy in proportion as the principle underlying them is beneficial or wicked.
VINAYAK DAMODAR SAVARKAR
The Volcano; Or, The First War of Indian Independence
Revolutions are not planned events. They just come when conditions are ripe. Dissatisfied and unhappy people deciding to mass up.
ANTONIO P. CONTRERAS
"Revolutionary government, palace coup and democratic options", The Manila Times, November 4, 2017
Revolution is but thought carried into action.
EMMA GOLDMAN
Anarchism and Other Essays
Look at the American Revolution in 1776. That revolution was for what? For land. Why did they want land? Independence. How was it carried out? Bloodshed. Number one, it was based on land, the basis of independence. And the only way they could get it was bloodshed. The French Revolution -- what was it based on? The land-less against the landlord. What was it for? Land. How did they get it? Bloodshed. Was no love lost; was no compromise; was no negotiation. I'm telling you, you don't know what a revolution is. 'Cause when you find out what it is, you'll get back in the alley; you'll get out of the way. The Russian Revolution -- what was it based on? Land. The land-less against the landlord. How did they bring it about? Bloodshed. You haven't got a revolution that doesn't involve bloodshed. And you're afraid to bleed. I said, you're afraid to bleed.
MALCOLM X
Message to the Grass Roots, November 10, 1963
The right to rebellion is the right to seek a higher rule, and not to wander in mere lawlessness.
GEORGE ELIOT
Felix Holt
Resistance to improvement contradicts the noblest instincts of the race. It begets its opposite. The fanaticism of reform is only the raging of the accumulated waters caused by the obstructions which an ultra conservatism has thrown across the stream of progress; and revolution itself is but the sudden overwhelming and sweeping away of impediments that should have been seasonably removed.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
Revolutions are always more exciting than baby steps.
PHILIP BUMP
"Democrats may have an enthusiasm problem in 2016", Washington Post, February 10, 2016
The peoples' revolution ... will arrange its revolutionary organisation from the bottom up and from the periphery to the centre, in keeping with the principle of liberty.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
Program and Object of the Secret Revolutionary Organisation of the International Brotherhood
History is a relay of revolutions.
SAUL ALINSKY
Rules for Radicals
Revolution sounds very romantic, you know, but it ain't. it's blood and guts and madness; it's little kids killed who get in the way, it's little kids who don't understand what the f**k is going on. it's your whore, your wife ripped in the belly with a bayonet and then raped in the a** while you watch. it's men torturing men who used to laugh at Mickey Mouse cartoons.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Notes of a Dirty Old Man
A revolution must aim at the destruction of the given order and will succeed only by asserting an order of its own.
RUDOLF ARNHEIM
Entropy and Art: An Essay on Disorder and Order