quotations about revolution
Revolutions are never pleasant or pretty. Dismantling a power structure is like dismantling a bomb. Embarrassment and confusion fill the air.
RAVIT HECHT
"There Are No Pretty Revolutions", Haaretz, November 10, 2017
Failed revolutions are better than no revolutions.
RICHARD SCHECHNER
"Authorities want to inoculate people against art", Times of India, February 6, 2016
If we would trace our descents, we should find all slaves to come from princes and all princes from slaves: But fortune has turned all things topsy-turvy, in a long story of revolutions.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
That humanity and sincerity which dispose men to resist injustice and tyranny render them unfit to cope with the cunning and power of those who are opposed to them. The friends of liberty trust to the professions of others because they are themselves sincere, and endeavour to secure the public good with the least possible hurt to its enemies, who have no regard to anything but their own unprincipled ends, and stick at nothing to accomplish them.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characters of Shakespeare's Plays
There's no justice in revolutions, whose spoils are divided up by the Fates over the dead bodies of the freedom fighters who held out until the final hour.
AHLEM MOSTEGHANEMI
The Dust of Promises
Look what's happening out in the streets
Got a revolution (got to revolution)
Hey, I'm dancing down the streets
JEFFERSON AIRPLANE
"Volunteers"
The history of the human race always has been, and most likely always will be, that of evolution and revolution.
LEWIS F. KORNS
Thoughts
Revolution requires extensive and widespread destruction, a fecund and renovating destruction, since in this way and only this way are new worlds born.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
"Statism and Anarchy"
There is no final one; revolutions are infinite.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
We
In my view the time for rousing revolutionary literature has passed, because the revolution has already revolutionised itself to death and has left behind only bitterness and a sort of weariness, listlessness and even nausea.
GAO XINGJIAN
Cold Literature", The Case for Literature
First, what is a revolution? Sometimes I'm inclined to believe that many of our people are using this word "revolution" loosely, without taking careful consideration [of] what this word actually means, and what its historic characteristics are. When you study the historic nature of revolutions, the motive of a revolution, the objective of a revolution, and the result of a revolution, and the methods used in a revolution, you may change words. You may devise another program. You may change your goal and you may change your mind.
MALCOLM X
Message to the Grass Roots, November 10, 1963
Revolutions are painful by definition; old things are broken and swept away. New things are tried, adjusted and tried again. Old habits die hard and new ones are slow to form. But I am optimistic. I know that nothing human really lasts as long as the grass shall grow and the rivers shall flow, but this revolution will succeed in part because the grass grows, the wind blows and the water still flows.
STAFF WRITER
"As long as the grass shall grow", Rutland Herald, February 7, 2016
It is impossible to predict the time and progress of revolution. It is governed by its own more or less mysterious laws. But when it comes it moves irresistibly.
VLADIMIR LENIN
speech at the Polytechnic Museum in Moscow, August 23, 1918
Hurrah for revolution and more cannon-shot!
A beggar upon horseback lashes a beggar on foot.
Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again!
The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
"The Great Day", Last Poems
I feel anxious for the fate of our monarchy, or democracy, or whatever is to take place. I soon get lost in a labyrinth of perplexities; but, whatever occurs, may justice and righteousness be the stability of our times, and order arise out of confusion.
ABIGAIL ADAMS
letter to John Adams, November 27, 1775
Revolutions are all based on the false idea that humans and their nature can be changed. And once changed, they will fit neatly into the Utopia.
PETER HITCHENS
Daily Mail, November 18, 2017
So much in a revolution is nothing but waiting.
SINCLAIR LEWIS
It Can't Happen Here
Revolutions are not a rosy affair, no matter where. You can't cut out just one thing.
YURY FILATOV
"Allegations of Russian interference are ludicrous, says new ambassador", Irish Times, November 20, 2017