quotations about revolution
We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out
THE BEATLES
"Revolution"
Make the Revolution a parent of settlement, and not a nursery of future revolutions.
EDMUND BURKE
Reflections on the Revolution in France
The first lesson a revolutionary must learn is that he is a doomed man.
HUEY P. NEWTON
Revolutionary Suicide
Revolution that divests itself of ethical values thereby lays the foundation of injustice, deceit, and oppression for the future society.
EMMA GOLDMAN
My Disillusionment with Russia
No revolution can ever succeed as a factor of liberation unless the MEANS used to further it be identical in spirit and tendency with the PURPOSES to be achieved. Revolution is the negation of the existing, a violent protest against man's inhumanity to man with all the thousand and one slaveries it involves. It is the destroyer of dominant values upon which a complex system of injustice, oppression, and wrong has been built up by ignorance and brutality. It is the herald of NEW VALUES, ushering in a transformation of the basic relations of man to man, and of man to society.
EMMA GOLDMAN
My Disillusionment with Russia
Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
JOHN BRADSHAW
inscription on his tombstone
The idea of revolution needs to be detached from the notion of sudden and dramatic rupture. Fundamental change need not, and should not, happen overnight. Any lasting change is usually gradual. This system needs to be changed brick by brick.
YOGENDRA YADAV
"The idea of revolution", Tribune India, November 8, 2017
I can't possibly celebrate the system, i.e Soviet communism. I also find it hard to write an unqualified ode to the event, the Russian Revolution of 1917. Yet, there is something that must be celebrated, the idea of revolution. No matter how it unfolded, the Russian Revolution marked the triumph of an idea, the idea that human beings could shape their own destiny in hitherto unforeseen ways. The centenary of the Russian Revolution must be an occasion to celebrate this spirit and to reshape the idea of revolution in the light of the history of the 20th century.
YOGENDRA YADAV
"The idea of a revolution", Tribune India, November 8, 2017
Revolutionary movements attract those who are not good enough for established institutions as well as those who are too good for them.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Androcles and the Lion
I'd say that revolutions are planned by the Fates, carried out by idiots, and profited from by thieves. This is the way things have happened throughout history.
AHLEM MOSTEGHANEMI
The Dust of Promises
45 revolutions, playing on your stereo
Not one revolution on the street
BLITZ
"45 Revolutions"
In my opinion, the young generation of whites, blacks, browns, whatever else there is, you're living at a time of extremism, a time of revolution, a time when there's got to be a change, people in power have misused it, and now there has to be a change. And a better world has to be built and the only way it's going to be built is with extreme methods. And I, for one, will join in with anyone -- don't care what color you are -- as long as you want to change this miserable condition that exists on this earth.
MALCOLM X
Oxford Union Debate, December 3, 1964
When leaders betray their people and the people don't overthrow them, it's not just the leaders who should be blamed.
SERGEI LUKYANENKO
New Watch
Revolutions are unpredictable and they do not usually figure in the models for the future. But as we know ... they do happen and then they do take over the world by storm.
JULIAN POPOV
"The CEO of the largest Russian bank said the age of oil was over. He is sort of right.", Huffington Post, February 12, 2016
In Europe and America, revolutions are brewing. They are peaceful and democratic, but they are going to send the elites home that are running our nations into the ground.
GEERT WILDERS
"The Patriot Spring", Breitbart, January 26, 2016
The greatest and most powerful revolutions often start very quietly, hidden in the shadows.
RICHELLE MEAD
Vampire Academy
Revolutions are not stories. They are not poems. Revolutions are not texts nor are they primarily textual in nature. Revolutions are events. They are projects and processes, made and sustained by people insisting on living lives of dignity.
JACK SHENKER
The Egyptians: A Radical Story
Revolutions never go backwards.
WENDELL PHILLIPS
speech, February 17, 1861
Marx says that revolutions are the locomotives of world history. But the situation may be quite different. Perhaps revolutions are not the train ride, but the human race grabbing for the emergency brake.
WALTER BENJAMIN
Arcades Project
All revolutions are prone to devouring their children.
CATHY YOUNG
"The Totalitarian Doctrine of Social Justice Warriors", Observer, February 2, 2016