Antiestablishment Quotes

“When you say 'I want to fit in,' you are essentially volunteering yourself as a victim, and when the thing you want to fit in with is 'society' - well, as 'society' is just another word for government, you're basically begging the government to control you and use you as it wishes for its nefarious purposes, which can be pretty damn nefarious, if 'nefarious' means what I believe it does.”
― Frank Portman, King Dork Approximately

“However, ana al-haqq as it stands has raised a few literary questions as well and, within the tradition of mystic poetry, the attitude preserved in Hallaj's expression has given rise to mixed reactions regarding its content. It is held that it is an exaggeration of subjective experience, and ana—the personal "I"—shows leanings toward megalomania and egotism. It is the personal "I" which overshadows al-haqq, and thereby invites total attention to itself. In fact, the personal "I" absorbs al-haqq, and reaches out to the romantic cult of the egostistical sublime. In this context, the truth tends to become subjective and, therefore, relative, and in its social implications it shows the possibility of numerous diversions. Extreme individualism, in contrast to institutionalism, is also held to be related to ana al-haqq. The personal "I" is supposed to be potentionally explosive and destructive for values of the Establishment. A.J. Arberry has summed up the position by saying that Hallaj had dared to declare that his direct awareness of God was for him a clearer proof than both revelation and reason.”
― Gilani Kamran, Ana Al-Haqq Reconsidered

“Dear Amnesiac,

Yes, your pyramids were raised
Roughly up at right angles
To exert out loud and bright in the jungle
And obscure in darkness the jungle around—
And how many years is it you're living
In fear of the darkness there created?
You’ve your back to the door and the four corners
You’re standing in a room with walls and a floor
But just the same as any other
You’ve stood in in pictures or places before.
Alien in your place of birth, you pound
An outraged fist into your palm, but are
Too over-tired and too much adrift,
Not at home, grown absent in an absent world.
So— your steam engine roared
Across space and the four seasons,
And from conductors’ hands unloaded
Its surplus even to the farthest hamlet.
Yes, your transportations have taken you
Beyond the known horizon, but not any
Nearer to infinity, nor to eternity.
That is the moon double-paned in the window-glass
But could just as well be another bulb reflected.
Afloat, nowhere, a ghost you have become
You having from many hands vanished.
Your mind will not stop wandering, and all over
These carnival streets is too much noise for hearing.
You have withdrawn from this; are living in fear.
You fear death and the chances of death
So far removed you live from dying...
And waking up you find the day is there,
Existing, all-ready, you can only enter—
And looking to the night you see a frontier that's
Cold, empty, like it's a world you've never known.
You've become stuck in the middle of it, without any
Sense of the horizons, and are all the time crying
Too furious for the ruin of your world.
But every thing in ruin must first be made:
A wildfire only burns, transforms
The wood, and passes. It is not a collapse.
Too anxious you’re striving to build a new day—
Every morning only awaits your being born.”
― Mark Kaplon, The Windswept Verses

“They campaigned on contempt for the body they sought to join.”
― Rick Perlstein, The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan

“চাঁদের গুহার দিকে নির্নিমেষে চেয়ে থাকি, মেঝের উপরে

দাঁড়িয়ে রয়েছে চাঁদ, প্রকাশ্য দিনের বেলা, স্পষ্ট দেখা যায়

চাঁদের গুহার দিকে নির্নিমেষে চেয়ে থাকি, ঘাসগুলো ছোটো করে ছাঁটা ।

ঘাসের ভিতর দিয়ে দেখা যায় গুহার উপরকার ভাঁজ ।

গুহার লুকোনো মুখ থেকে শুরু হয়ে সেই ভাঁজটি এসেছে

বাহিরে পেটের দিকে । চাঁদ হেঁটে এসে যেই বিছানার উপরে দাঁড়াল

অমনি চাঁদকে বলি, ‘তেল লাগাবে না আজ’, শুনে চাঁদ বলে

‘মাখব নিশ্চয়, তবে একটু অপেক্ষা কর’ বলে সে অয়েলক্লথ নিয়ে

পেতে দিল বিছানায়, বালিশের কিছু নিচে, তারপর হেঁটে এসে চলে গেল

নিকটে তাকের দিকে, একটি বোতল থেকে বাম হাতে তেল নিয়ে এল

এসে তেল মাখা হাতে ভুট্টাটি চেপে ধরে ।

যখন ধরল তার আগেই ভুট্টাটি খাড়া হয়ে গিয়েছিল ।

চাঁদ আমি দুজনেই মেঝেতে দাঁড়ানো মুখোমুখি

এক হাতে ঘসে ঘসে ভুট্টার উপরে চাঁদ তেল মেখে দিল ।”
― Binoy Majumdar, কাব্য সমগ্র দ্বিতীয় খন্ড