Revolutionary Quotes - Page 30

• Without writing, what would I have become? Nothing. In China the individual used to be treated as a screw or a small cog in the revolutionary machine. I wanted to be a human being with a voice.

  Ha Jin

  Writing, Voice, Cogs

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• The intellectual and moral satisfaction that I failed to gain from the utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill, the revolutionary methods of Marx and Lenin, the social contract theory of Hobbes, the "back to nature" optimism of Rousseau, and the superman philosophy of Nietzsche, I found in the nonviolent resistance philosophy of Gandhi. I came to feel that this was the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Philosophy, Struggle, People

  Martin Luther King (Jr.) (1964). “A Martin Luther King Treasury”

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• All revolutionary advances in science may consist less of sudden and dramatic revelations than a series of transformations, of which the revolutionary significance may not be seen (except afterwards, by historians) until the last great step. In many cases the full potentiality and force of a most radical step in such a sequence of transformations may not even be manifest to its author.

  I. Bernard Cohen

  Science, May, Lasts

  I. Bernard Cohen (1983). “The Newtonian Revolution”, p.162, Cambridge University Press

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• Don't hesitate to be as revolutionary as science. Don't hesitate to be as reactionary as the multiplication table.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Tables, Multiplication, Reactionaries

  Calvin Coolidge (1924). “Calvin Coolidge, His Ideals of Citizenship as Revealed Through His Speeches and Writings”

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• Things that people learn purely out of curiosity can have a revolutionary effect on human affairs.

  Frederick Seitz

  Learning, Science, People

  Interview for the George C. Marshall Institute, September 3, 1997.

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• The ending of partition was inevitable because Ireland was one nation by history and tradition , by facts of race, geography, and economy

  Seamus Costello

  Race, Facts, Tradition

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• We must make no secret of the fact that we are a revolutionary party , prepared to give leadership on the streets as well as in the elected chambers & that we are out for a revolutionary state

  Seamus Costello

  Party, Giving, Secret

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• Television was the most revolutionary event of the century. Its importance was in a class with the discovery of gunpowder and the invention of the printing press, which changed the human condition for centuries afterward.

  Russell Baker

  Discovery, Class, Television

  Russell Baker (1991). “There's a Country in My Cellar”, Avon Books

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• I don't believe any real artists have ever been non-political. They may have been insensitive to this particular plight or insensitive to that, but they were political, because that's what an artist is-a politician.

  Toni Morrison

  Real, Believe, Artist

  Toni Morrison, Danille Kathleen Taylor-Guthrie (1994). “Conversations with Toni Morrison”, p.4, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Narrative is radical, creating us at the very moment it is being created.

  Toni Morrison

  Creating, Narrative, Moments

  Nobel Prize for Literature Lecture, delivered 7 December 1993

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• There should be a class on drugs. There should be a class on sex education-a real sex education class-not just pictures and diaphragms and 'un-logical' terms and things like that.....there should be a class on scams, there should be a class on religious cults, there should be a class on police brutality, there should be a class on apartheid, there should be a class on racism in America, there should be a class on why people are hungry, but there are not, there are classes on gym, physical education, let's learn volleyball.

  Tupac Shakur

  Volleyball, Religious, Sex

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• Foreign languages, I think they are important but I don't think it should be required because-actually I think they should be teaching you English and then teaching you how to understand double talk-a politician's double talk-not teaching you how to understand French and Spanish and German, when am I going to Germany? I can't even afford to pay my rent in America, how am I going to Germany?

  Tupac Shakur

  Teaching, Thinking, America

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• My mother taught me three things, respect, knowledge-search for knowledge, it's an eternal journey. That's like my hair-cut, the line, 360 degrees, find knowledge always. And she taught me to not be quiet, if there's something on my mind speak it. But also to listen.

  Tupac Shakur

  Mother, Cutting, Journey

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• I don't know how to change the world but I know if I keep talking about how dirty it is out here, somebody gon clean it up.

  Tupac Shakur

  Dirty, Talking, World

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• I don't want to be a role model. I just want to be someone who says, this is who I am, this is what I do, I say what's on my mind.

  Tupac Shakur

  Who I Am, Role Models, Mind

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• I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence. I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than that she should, in a cowardly manner, become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonour. But I believe that nonviolence is infinitely superior to violence, forgiveness is more manly than punishment.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Believe, Order, Punishment

  Mohandas Karmchand Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi, V. Geetha (2004). “Soul Force: Gandhi's Writings on Peace”, p.158, Tara Publishing

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• I have been repeating over and over again that he who cannot protect himself or his nearest and dearest or their honour by non-violently facing death may and ought to do so by violently dealing with the oppressor. He who can do neither of the two is a burden. He has no business to be the head of a family. He must either hide himself, or must rest content to live for ever in helplessness and be prepared to crawl like a worm at the bidding of a bully.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Two, Bully, Bidding

  Mahatma Gandhi, U. R. Rao (1963). “The Way to Communal Harmony”, Ahmedabad, [India] : Navajivan Publishing House

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• Whilst I may not actually help anyone to retaliate, I must not let a coward seek shelter behind nonviolence so-called. Not knowing the stuff of which nonviolence is made, many have honestly believed that running away from danger every time was a virtue compared to offering resistance, especially when it was fraught with danger to one's life. As a teacher of nonviolence I must, so far as it is possible for me, guard against such an unmanly belief.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Running, Teacher, Offering

  Mahatma Gandhi (2005). “All Men Are Brothers”, p.98, A&C Black

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• Self-defense...is the only honourable course where there is unreadiness for self-immolation.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Self, Defense, Courses

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• Though violence is not lawful, when it is offered in self-defense or for the defense of the defenseless, it is an act of bravery far better than cowardly submission. The latter befits neither man nor woman. Under violence, there are many stages and varieties of bravery. Every man must judge this for himself. No other person can or has the right.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Men, Self, Judging

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• The political superstition is still holding sway over the hearts and minds of the masses, but the true lovers of liberty will have no more to do with it. Instead, they believe with Stirner that man has as much liberty as he is willing to take. Anarchism therefore stands for direct action, the open defiance of, and resistance to, all laws and restrictions, economic, social, and moral. But defiance and resistance are illegal. Therein lies the salvation of man. Everything illegal necessitates integrity, self-reliance and courage.

  Emma Goldman

  Integrity, Lying, Believe

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism: Top Crime Collections”, p.36, 谷月社

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• If not for the direct action of a John Brown and his comrades, America would still trade in the flesh of the black man.

  Emma Goldman

  Men, Direct Action, America

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism and Other Essays”, p.44, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• Direct action against the authority in the shop, direct action against the authority of the law, direct action against the invasive, meddlesome authority of our moral code, is the logical, consistent method of Anarchism. Will it not lead to a revolution? Indeed, it will. No real social change has ever come without a revolution. People are either not familiar with their history, or they have not yet learned that revolution is but thought carried into action.

  Emma Goldman

  Real, Law, Direct Action

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism and Other Essays”, p.44, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• Of all parties I now see only one party- The Anarchist- which respects human life, and loudly insists upon the abolition of capital punishment, prison torture and punishment of man by man altogether.

  Peter Kropotkin

  Party, Men, Prison

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• At the meeting I argued that the state had given us no alternative to violence. I said it was wrong and immoral to subject our people to armed attacks by the state without offering them some kind of alternative. I mentioned again that people on their own had taken up arms. Violence would begin whether we initiated it or not. Would it not be better to guide this violence ourselves, according to principles where we saved lives by attacking symbols of oppression, and not people? If we did not take the lead now, I said, we would soon be latecomers and followers to a movement we did not control.

  Nelson Mandela

  Taken, Offering, People

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