quotations about revolution
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
They never fail who die
In a great cause: the block may soak their gore:
Their heads may sodden in the sun; their limbs
Be strung to city gates and castle walls--
But still their Spirit walks abroad. Though years
Elapse, and others share as dark a doom,
They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts
Which overpower all others, and conduct
The world at last to Freedom.
LORD BYRON
Marino Faliero
Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt
Revolution has become a sort of violent and hollow routine.
WYNDHAM LEWIS
"Evening Dress", The Diabolical Principle
Sometimes, the greatest revolutions are the quietest.
MICHAEL SUDMEIER
"Tech Innovations Inspiring Boots & Bindings", Transworld Business, January 30, 2016
You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Dispossessed
You can bump and grind.
Feeling fine.
You can twist and shout.
Knock yourself out, but you won't fool the children of the revolution.
VIOLENT FEMMES
"Children of the Revolution"
The revolution has overthrown the monarchy, true! But perhaps this means that the revolution simply has driven the skin disease inside the organism.
MAXIM GORKY
Untimely Thoughts
Revolutionary practice in any field of human existence develops by itself if one comprehends the contradictions in every new process; it consists in siding with those forces which act in the direction of progressive development.
WILHELM REICH
The Mass Psychology of Fascism
If we behave like those on the other side, then we are the other side. Instead of changing the world, all we'll achieve is a reflection of the one we want to destroy.
JEAN GENET
The Balcony
A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery. It cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.
MAO ZEDONG
Report on an investigation of the peasant movement in Hunan, March 1927
We live in troubled times
From the ghettos to an empty suburban home
We live in troubled times
And I'm 99 percent sure that something's wrong
It's all wrong
It's 99 revolutions tonight
GREEN DAY
"99 Revolutions"
We have it in our power to begin the world over again.
THOMAS PAINE
Common Sense
Revolutionaries do not make revolutions! The revolutionaries are those who know when power is lying in the street and when they can pick it up.
HANNAH ARENDT
"Thoughts on Politics and Revolution: A Commentary", Crises of the Republic
As to the history of the revolution, my ideas may be peculiar, perhaps singular. What do we mean by the Revolution? The war? That was no part of the revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected ... before a drop of blood was shed.
JOHN ADAMS
letter to Thomas Jefferson, August 24, 1815
There's a grief that can't be spoken.
There's a pain goes on and on.
Empty chairs at empty tables
Now my friends are dead and gone.
Here they talked of revolution.
Here it was they lit the flame.
Here they sang about "tomorrow"
And tomorrow never came.
HERBERT KRETZMER
"Empty Chairs at Empty Tables", Les Misérables
Revolutions are the periods of history when individuals count most.
NORMAN MAILER
Barbary Shore
Revolution is our obligation: our hope of evolution.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Dispossessed
It is far more easy to pull down, than to build up, and to destroy, than to preserve. Revolutions have on this account been falsely supposed to be fertile of great talent; as the dregs rise to the top, during a fermentation, and the lightest things are carried highest by the whirlwind. And the practice of this proposition bears out the theory; for demagogues have succeeded tolerably well in making ruins; but the moment they begin to build anew from the materials that they have overthrown, they have often been uselessly employed with regard to others, and more often dangerously with regard to themselves.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
A revolutionary moment in the world's history is a time for revolutions, not for patching.
WILLIAM BEVERIDGE
Social Insurance and Allied Services