quotations about revolution
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
Notice: Undefined variable: id in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/r/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 37
Thoughts Moral and Divine
Weak men, indeed, are prejudiced towards rules and systems in life and government; and think if these are gone all is gone: but a man of a great soul and free spirit delights in the noble experiment of blowing up systems and dissolving governments, to mould them anew upon other principles and in another shape.
GEORGE BERKELEY
Alciphron; or, The Minute Philosopher in Seven Dialogues
As to the history of the revolution, my ideas may be peculiar, perhaps singular. What do we mean by the Revolution? The war? That was no part of the revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected ... before a drop of blood was shed.
JOHN ADAMS
letter to Thomas Jefferson, August 24, 1815
Revolution, my dear prince, is not the substitution of immoral for moral, or of illegitimate for legitimate violence; it is simply the pitting of power against power, where the issue is freedom for the winners and enslavement of the rest.
JOHN GARDNER
Grendel
It is far more easy to pull down, than to build up, and to destroy, than to preserve. Revolutions have on this account been falsely supposed to be fertile of great talent; as the dregs rise to the top, during a fermentation, and the lightest things are carried highest by the whirlwind. And the practice of this proposition bears out the theory; for demagogues have succeeded tolerably well in making ruins; but the moment they begin to build anew from the materials that they have overthrown, they have often been uselessly employed with regard to others, and more often dangerously with regard to themselves.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
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
A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery. It cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.
MAO ZEDONG
Report on an investigation of the peasant movement in Hunan, March 1927
There's a grief that can't be spoken.
There's a pain goes on and on.
Empty chairs at empty tables
Now my friends are dead and gone.
Here they talked of revolution.
Here it was they lit the flame.
Here they sang about "tomorrow"
And tomorrow never came.
HERBERT KRETZMER
"Empty Chairs at Empty Tables", Les Misérables
Sometimes, the greatest revolutions are the quietest.
MICHAEL SUDMEIER
"Tech Innovations Inspiring Boots & Bindings", Transworld Business, January 30, 2016
We have it in our power to begin the world over again.
THOMAS PAINE
Common Sense
The new revolutions are signalling an end of a long era equivalent to thousands of years. They are beyond just a merry-go-round of political personalities, they will become the new politics.
JOSE MA. MONTELIBANO
"The New Revolutions", Inquirer, February 12, 2016
Revolution does not insure progress. You may overturn thrones, but what proof that anything better will grow upon the soil?
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Some men hope for revolution but when you revolt and set up your new government you find your new government is still the same old Papa, he has only put on a cardboard mask.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Notes of a Dirty Old Man
Revolutions aren't led by well-meaning wimps. Revolutions are about seizing power. They are about righting wrongs. Revolutions demand fierce confrontation and, as Robespierre might say, sharply-administered accountability.
JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
"When Chivalry Fails: St. Bernard and the Machine", Counterpunch, February 5, 2016
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
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
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
I can imagine no man who will look with more horror on the End than a conscientious revolutionary who has, in a sense sincerely, been justifying cruelties and injustices inflicted on millions of his contemporaries by the benefits which he hopes to confer on future generations: generations who, as one terrible moment now reveals to him, were never going to exist. Then he will see the massacres, the faked trials, the deportations, to be all ineffaceably real, an essential part, his part, in the drama that has just ended: while the future Utopia had never been anything but a fantasy.
C. S. LEWIS
The World's Last Night
Human; Not Human
Freedom; Not Freedm
Change; No Change
Revolution!
JEAN MICHEL JARRE
"Revolution, Revolutions"
A revolutionary moment in the world's history is a time for revolutions, not for patching.
WILLIAM BEVERIDGE
Social Insurance and Allied Services