Agitate Quotes

• Agitation is the marshalling of the conscience of a nation to mold its laws.

  Robert Peel

  Law, Mold, Agitation

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• Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress.

  Frederick Douglass

  Philosophy, Struggle, August

  Frederick Douglass, Philip Sheldon Foner, Yuval Taylor (1999). “Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings”, p.367, Chicago Review Press

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• It is odd but agitation or contest of any kind gives a rebound to my spirits and sets me up for a time.

  Lord Byron

  Time, Giving, Agitation

  "Poet of all the passions" by Fiona MacCarthy, www.theguardian.com. November 8, 2002.

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• Minds that are ill at ease are agitated by both hope and fear.

  Ovid

  Fear, Psychology, Mind

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• Pour some water into a tub and stir it up. Now try as hard as you can to calm the water with your hands; you will succeed in agitating it further. Let it stand undisturbed a while, and it will calm down by itself. The human brain works much the same way.

  Koichi Tohei

  Art, Philosophy, Hands

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• Tolerance is really a better thing than understanding. Because it doesn't agitate against human nature.

  Fran Lebowitz

  Understanding, Tolerance, Human Nature

  "The Voice: Fran Lebowitz". Interview with Francesco Clemente, www.interviewmagazine.com. March 11, 2016.

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• Happiness is good, but well-overrated: what we hate most are the very motivators that put us in gear. A man drifts along with little to contribute until something agitates him enough to make a difference, whether for himself or for his communities.

  Criss Jami

  Hate, Men, Differences

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.113, Criss Jami

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• The risk is enormous to Democrats. Even talking about censure or impeachment threatens to really agitate the Republican base.

  Charlie Cook

  Talking, Risk, Agitation

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• Unless the poor of the world agitate for themselves to be heard, there will be no changes in their circumstances.

  Vandana Shiva

  World, Poor, Circumstances

  "Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability And Peace". Book by Vandana Shiva, 2005.

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• Those things which make the infernal regions terrible, the darkness, the prison, the river of flaming fire, the judgment seat, are all a fable, with which the poets amuse themselves, and by them agitate us with vain terrors.

  Seneca the Younger

  Rivers, Fire, Darkness

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• My aim is to agitate and disturb people. I'm not selling bread; I'm selling yeast.

  Miguel de Unamuno

  People, Yeast, Bread

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• We come from the days when rap used to agitate the mainstream. Now it's more buddy-buddy. That doesn't sit well with me. So what we need is [a bit more] street politics, bringing up issues, agitating you a little bit. And nothing can agitate you more now than a terrorist threat.

  Ice Cube

  Rap, Issues, Needs

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• Language is, in other words, not necessary, but voluntary. If it were necessary, it would have stayed simple; it would not agitate our hearts with ever-present loveliness and ever-cresting ambiguity; it would not dream, on its long white bones, of turning into song.

  Mary Oliver

  Dream, Song, Heart

  Mary Oliver (1998). “West Wind: Poems and Prose Poems”, p.17, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Monks congregate like dogs in a kennel,
  From contact with their superiors they acquire knowledge,
  Is one the course of the wind, is one the water of the sea?
  Is one the spark of the fire, of unrestrainable tumult?
  Monks congregate like wolves,
  From contact with their superiors they acquire knowledge.
  They know not when the deep night and dawn divide.
  Nor what is the course of the wind, or who agitates it,
  In what place it dies away, on what land it roars.

  Taliesin

  Dog, Night, Wind

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• Capitalism is a powerful producer of output, crisis-mongering on the left notwithstanding, and this too makes the system seem to have a lot of promise. This is why it is so important to agitate against the system in good times and bad. We can't depend on some super crisis to get folks thinking but instead have to focus on all of the contradictions of the system which cannot be ultimately resolved by it.

  Michael Yates

  Powerful, Thinking, Focus

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• But in his Farewell Address, George Washington made it clear that he perceived no greater threat to the American experiment than a partisan demagogue who 'agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against the other'

  John Avlon

  Farewell, Community, Alarms

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• As has been reported, and is unmistakably evident to all but the most naïve, federal employees have been ordered to exploit this crisis, to make the government shutdown as uncomfortable as they can. The White House is actively soliciting complaints from the general public on 'how the government shutdown has affected you.' These testimonies are tools sought for the propaganda kit; the better to agitate with.

  Paul Kengor

  White, Government, House

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• [The spirit of party] serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another.

  George Washington

  Party, Community, Alarms

  George Washington, Andrew Jackson (1862). “Washington's Farewell Address: The Proclamation of Jackson Against Nullification, and the Declaration of Independence”, p.8

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• I believe scripture is not just resilient but rebellious against its abuse by people. Scripture says it refuses to be used in that way for long. That is why the gospel that has been used by the oppressors is the same gospel that liberated the oppressed: They were reading the same book. Something in the DNA of Christian faith and in the Bible agitates against that kind of misuse.

  Allan Boesak

  Christian, Believe, Book

  Source: reflections.yale.edu

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• And in cases where profound conviction has been wrought, the eloquent man is he who is no beautiful speaker, but who is inwardly drunk with a certain belief. It agitates and tears him, and perhaps almost bereaves him of the power of articulation.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Beautiful, Men, Drunk

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2432, Delphi Classics

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• Good things don't come to those who wait. They come to those who agitate!

  Julian Bond

  Motivational, Monday, History

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• My final words of advice to you are educate, agitate and organize; have faith in yourself. With justice on our side I do not see how we can loose our battle. The battle to me is a matter of joy. The battle is in the fullest sense spiritual. There is nothing material or social in it. For ours is a battle not for wealth or for power. It is battle for freedom. It is the battle of reclamation of human personality.

  B. R. Ambedkar

  Spiritual, Justice, Advice

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• Pay attention to the things that agitate you. It will tell you a lot about yourself.

  Terry McMillan

  Attention, Pay, About Yourself

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• It's not enough to say we need to love each other, you have to go behind that and say we need to change these policies, we need to fight, we need to protest, we need to agitate for change.

  John Legend

  Fighting, Needs, Enough

  Source: www.washingtontimes.com

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• Memory is the seamstress, and a capricious one at that. Memory runs her needle in and out, up and down, hither and thither. We know not what comes next, or what follows after. Thus, the most ordinary movement in the world, such as sitting down at a table and pulling the inkstand towards one, may agitate a thousand odd, disconnected fragments, now bright, now dim, hanging and bobbing and dipping and flaunting, like the underlinen of a family of fourteen on a line in a gale of wind.

  Virginia Woolf

  Running, Memories, Wind

  Virginia Woolf (2007). “Selected Works of Virginia Woolf”, p.436, Wordsworth Editions

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