Revolutionary Quotes - Page 36

• The cause which is blocking all progress today is the subtle scepticism which whispers in a million ears that things are not good enough to be worth improving. If the world is good we are revolutionaries, if the world is evil we must be conservatives. These essays, futile as they are considered as serious literature, are yet ethically sincere, since they seek to remind men that things must be loved first and improved afterwards.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Block, Men, Evil

  "The Defendant". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1901.

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• Intellectuals cannot be good revolutionaries; they are just good enough to be assassins.

  Jean-Paul Sartre

  Assassins, Enough, Be Good

  "Dirty Hands". Play by Jean-Paul Sartre, Act 5, sc. 3, 1948.

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• Man has existed for about a million years. He has possessed writing for about 6,000 years, agriculture somewhat longer, but perhaps not much longer. Science, as a dominant factor in determining the belief of educated men, has existed for about 300 years; as a source of economic technique, for about 150 years. In this brief period it has proved itself an incredibly powerful revolutionary force. When we consider how recently it has risen to power, we find ourselves forced to believe that we are at the very beginning of its work in transforming human life.

  Bertrand Russell

  Powerful, Believe, Writing

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “The Impact of Science on Society”, p.1, Routledge

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• Every style seems completely appropriate to its epoch. We cannot imagine Madame de Pompadour, or the Empress Josephine, or the early Victorian lady in anything but the clothes she actually wore. Each represents completely the ideals of her time: elegant artificiality or post-Revolutionary morals, or the prudery of the rising middle class.

  James Laver

  Fashion, Class, Clothes

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• Claude Debussy was a rare phenomenon a composer profoundly and subversively revolutionary.

  Claude Debussy

  Composer, Debussy, Phenomenon

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• The myth about the angel who rebelled against his Lord is the most beautiful of all myths, the proudest, the most revolutionary, the most immortal of them all.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Inspirational, Beautiful, Art

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• Indeed, some "revolutionaries" brand as "innocents," "dreamers," or even "reactionaries"; those who would challenge this educational practice. But one does not liberate people by alienating them. Authentic liberation - the process of humanization - is not another deposit to be made in men.

  Paulo Freire

  Educational, Men, Practice

  Paulo Freire (2014). “Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition”, p.56, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• I never perceived a contradiction in the political revolutionary field between the ideas I maintained and the idea of that symbol, that extraordinary figure who had been so familiar to me since I began to reason.

  Fidel Castro

  Ideas, Political, Fields

  "Fidel & Religion: Conversations with Frei Betto on Marxism & Liberation Theology". Book by Fidel Castro and‎ Frei Betto, 1985.

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• Aladdin in his most intoxicated moments would never have dreamed of asking his [djinn] for [a polaroid] ... It's utterly new in concept and appearance, utilizing an utterly revolutionary flash system, an utterly revolutionary viewing system, utterly revolutionary electronics, and utterly revolutionary film structure.

  Edwin Land

  Asking, Electronics, Film

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• The first book ever written in an alphabet was the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament. And the most important passage was the Ten Commandments. The first commandment is the most revolutionary sentence ever written. It states: "I am the Lord thy God there is no other." The second prohibits us from making images. Thus, there is a profound rejection of any goddess influence and a ban of representative art.

  Leonard Shlain

  Art, Book, Profound

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• The most revolutionary thing you can do is get to know your neighbors.

  Karl Hess

  Neighbor, Knows, Can Do

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• Whether or not birth control is eugenic, hygienic, and economic, it is the most revolutionary practice in the history of sexual morals.

  Walter Lippmann

  Practice, Birth Control, Moral

  Walter Lippmann (1960). “A Preface To Morals”, p.291, Transaction Publishers

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• The education we all receive from the State, at school and after, has so warped our minds that the very notion of freedom ends up by being lost, and disguised in servitude. It is a sad sight to see those who believe themselves to be revolutionaries unleashing their hatred on the anarchist just because his views on freedom go beyond their petty and narrow concepts of freedom learned in the State school.

  Peter Kropotkin

  Believe, School, Sight

  "The State: Its Historic Role". Book by Peter Kropotkin, www.panarchy.org. 1897.

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• The courage to be as oneself within the atmosphere of Enlightenment is the courage to affirm oneself as a bridge from a lower to a higher state of rationality. It is obvious that this kind of courage to be must become conformist the moment its revolutionary attack on that which contradicts reason has ceased, namely in the victorious bourgeoisie.

  Paul Tillich

  Bridges, Atmosphere, Enlightenment

  "The Courage to Be" by Paul Tillich, (p. 116), 1952.

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• 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

  Practice, Development, Fields

  "The Mass Psychology of Fascism". Book by Wilhelm Reich, 1933.

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• Here is the crisis of the times as I see it: We talk about problems, issues, policies, but we don't talk about what democracy means - what it bestows on us - the revolutionary idea that it isn't just about the means of governance but the means of dignifying people so they become fully free to claim their moral and political agency.

  Bill Moyers

  Mean, Revolutionary Ideas, Issues

  "The Power of Democracy". Speech accepting the Public Intellectual Award of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation on February 07, 2007. "Moyers on Democracy". Book by Bill D. Moyers, p. 92, 2008.

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• I work in the field of art, and you know how during a period of Marxist ideology, fewer people are inclined to believe in the power of the culture as a whole: they believe in the revolutionary potential of economics, class struggle theory.. ..Therefore it's time to show that art means the power of creativity, and it's time to define art in a larger way, to include science and religion too..(1973

  Joseph Beuys

  Art, Believe, Struggle

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• I think art is the only political power, the only revolutionary power, the only evolutionary power, the only power to free humankind form all repression. I say not that art has already realized this, on the contrary, and because it has not, it has to be developed as a weapon, at first there are radical levels, then you can speak about special details.

  Joseph Beuys

  Art, Thinking, Political

  "The Role of Documentation in Conceptual Art: : An Aesthetic Inquiry". Book by Robert C. Morgan, 1978.

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• It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor. ... Some of the worst tyrannies of our day genuinely are "vowed" to the service of mankind, yet can function only by pitting neighbor against neighbor. The all-seeing eye of a totalitarian regime is usually the watchful eye of the next-door neighbor. In a Communist state love of neighbor may be classed as counter-revolutionary.

  Eric Hoffer

  Eye, Doors, Humanity

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• science is the most revolutionary force in the world.

  George Sarton

  World, Force

  George Sarton (1952). “A Guide to the History of Science: A First Guide for the Study of the History of Science, with Introductory Essays on Science and Tradition”

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• Too often the revolutionary is the man who must create order in the chaos left by failed conservatives.

  Bernard Crick

  Men, Order, Chaos

  Bernard Crick (1962). “In Defence of Politics”

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• I lost my eyes In east wind skies Here's where I've cried Where I've tried Where God and the Tendaberry rise Where Quakers and revolutionaries Join for life

  Laura Nyro

  Eye, Wind, Sky

  Song: New York Tendaberry, Album: New York Tendaberry

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• The creative instinct has always been a stronger motive than mere profit to do truly new and revolutionary things.

  Phil Karn

  Creative, Stronger, Instinct

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• In a revolutionary age talk of equality may well have represented a passion to provide full human dignity to those who had previously been denied it by systems of political and economic domination; but in the present age it softens the spiritual requirements that are an essential ingredient in human dignity. Thus the slogans of equality serve not so much to elevate individuals to the dignity of being human as to free them from the responsibility of rising to this vocation.

  Merold Westphal

  Spiritual, Responsibility, Passion

  Merold Westphal (2010). “Kierkegaard's Critique of Reason and Society”, p.49, Penn State Press

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• The theory of politics that emerges from the political literature of the pre-Revolutionary years rests on the belief that what lay behind every political scene, the ultimate explanation of every political controversy, was the disposition of power.

  Bernard Bailyn

  Years, Political, Literature

  Bernard Bailyn (2012). “The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution”, p.55, Harvard University Press

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