REVOLUTION QUOTES
quotations about revolution
It is not difficult to be a revolutionary when revolution has already broken out and is in spate, when all people are joining the revolution just because they are carried away, because it is the vogue, and sometimes even from careerist motives. It is far more difficult--and far more precious--to be a revolutionary when the conditions for direct, open, really mass and really revolutionary struggle do not yet exist.
VLADIMIR LENIN
Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder
A little rebellion now and then is a good thing and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787
Do people demand a really just system? Well, we'll arrange it so that they'll be satisfied with one that's a little less unjust ... They want a revolution, and we'll give them reforms -- lots of reforms; we'll drown them in reforms. Or rather, we'll drown them in promises of reforms, because we'll never give them real ones either!!
DARIO FO
Accidental Death of an Anarchist
A people contending for life and liberty are seldom disposed to look with a favorable eye upon either men or measures whose passions, interests or consequences will clash with those inestimable objects.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to General Thomas, July 23, 1775
Revolutions have never lightened the burden of tyranny. They have only shifted it to another shoulder.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Man and Superman
A revolution is bloody. Revolution is hostile. Revolution knows no compromise. Revolution overturns and destroys everything that gets in its way. And you, sitting around here like a knot on the wall, saying, "I'm going to love these folks no matter how much they hate me." No, you need a revolution. Whoever heard of a revolution where they lock arms, as Reverend Cleage was pointing out beautifully, singing "We Shall Overcome"? Just tell me. You don't do that in a revolution. You don't do any singing; you're too busy swinging.
MALCOLM X
Message to the Grass Roots, November 10, 1963
You cannot make a revolution in white gloves.
VLADIMIR LENIN
attributed, Not By Politics Alone
Prudence ... will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
Declaration of Independence
Revolution is just one crowd taking power from another.
JOHN UPDIKE
Rabbit Redux
You don't have a revolution in which you love your enemy, and you don't have a revolution in which you are begging the system of exploitation to integrate you into it. Revolutions overturn systems. Revolutions destroy systems.
MALCOLM X
speech at the Congress for Racial Equality in Detroit, Michigan, April 12, 1964
A constitution imperiled justifies revolution.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
letter to W. S. Smith, November 13, 1787
You say you want a revolution, Well, you know, we all want to change the world... But when you talk about destruction, Don't you know that you can count me out.
JOHN LENNON
"Revolution"
A revolution is coming -- a revolution which will be peaceful if we are wise enough; compassionate if we care enough; successful if we are fortunate enough -- but a revolution which is coming whether we will it or not. We can affect its character; we cannot alter its inevitability.
ROBERT F. KENNEDY
Report to the United States Senate on his trip to Latin America and the Alliance for Progress, May 9, 1966
Revolutions are rarely the fault of the rebels. In every revolution if the ruling elite had not been so greedy, decadent, corrupt and vile, if they had not suppressed the people for so long, the revolutions would never have been necessary.
FR. DWIGHT LONGENECKER
"Why Are Young People Cheering for Socialism?", Patheos, February 11, 2016
Joy or sorrow, what does revolution mean to you?
To say today's like wishing in the wind
All my beautiful friends have all gone away
Like the waves they flow and they and die
THE CULT
"Revolution"
It's the well-behaved children ... that make the most formidable revolutionaries. They don't say a word, they don't hide under the table, they eat only one piece of chocolate at a time. But later on they make society pay dearly.
JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
Dirty Hands
While revolutions are always possible, they are absolutely not declared, nor can they be planned, not even by people who possess revolutionary aspirations.
ANTONIO P. CONTRERAS
"Revolutionary government, palace coup and democratic options", The Manila Times, November 4, 2017
Always beware of the fact, that the only thing hindering an all out revolution is your fear of losing the scraps they throw at you.
GORE VIDAL
Twitter post, July 29, 2012
Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech in the United States House of Representatives, January 12, 1848