Revolutionaries Quotes

“The first lesson a revolutionary must learn is that he is a doomed man.”
― Huey P. Newton

“Yes here's to the founding fathers—slave-owners, British citizens who didn't want to pay taxes...”
― David Mazzucchelli, Asterios Polyp

“My way is the way of silent revolution; revolution to raise the human consciousness through positive vibrations.”
― Amit Ray, Nuclear Weapons Free World - Peace on the Earth

“Skinner shared how he came to worship an elite White Jesus Christ, who cleaned people up through “rules and regulations,” a savior who prefigured Richard Nixon’s vision of law and order. But one day, Skinner realized that he’d gotten Jesus wrong. Jesus wasn’t in the Rotary Club and he wasn’t a policeman. Jesus was a “radical revolutionary, with hair on his chest and dirt under his fingernails.” Skinner’s new idea of Jesus was born of and committed to a new reading of the gospel. “Any gospel that does not … speak to the issue of enslavement” and “injustice” and “inequality—any gospel that does not want to go where people are hungry and poverty-stricken and set them free in the name of Jesus Christ—is not the gospel.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist

“[The young communist] must always pay attention to the mass of human beings he lives among. Every Young Communist must fundamentally be hu­man, so human that he draws closer to humanity's best qualities. Through work, through study, and through ongoing solidarity with the people and all the peoples of the world, he distills the best of what man is. Developing to the utmost the sensitivity to feel an­guish when a human being is murdered in any corner of the world and to feel enthusiasm when a new banner of freedom is raised in any corner of the world. [Applause]
The Young Communist cannot be limited by national borders. The Young Communist must practice proletarian internationalism and feel it as his own.”
― Che Guevara

“¿Será justo abandonar a la patria en estos momentos solemnes en que va a necesitar de toda la abnegación de sus hijos los humildes para que la salven, para que no la dejen caer de nuevo en manos de sus eternos detentadores y verdugos, los caciques?”
― Mariano Azuela, Los de abajo

“Ripples are made by those reckless enough to jump into the ocean.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Before You Doubt Yourself: Pep Talks and other Crucial Discussions

“Be the start of something that is good, revolutionary and powerful. Everything after that is a bonus!”
― Carlos Wallace, The Other 99 T.Y.M.E.S: Train Your Mind to Enjoy Serenity

“Blessed are the poor in spirit; yours is the kingdom of heaven! What could the church do, not just say, that would make the poor in spirit believe that? Blessed are the mourners; they shall be comforted! How will the mourners believe that, if we are not God's agents in bringing that comfort? Blessed are the meek; they shall inherit the earth. How will the meet ever believe such nonsense if the church does not stand up for the rights against the rich and the powerful, in the name of the crucified Messiah who had nowhere to lay his head? Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for God's justice; how will that message get through, unless we are prepared to stand alongside those who are denied justice and go on making a fuss until they get it? Blessed are the merciful; how are people to believe that, in a world where mercy is weakness, unless we visit the prisoner and welcome the prodigal? Blessed are the pure in heart; how will people believe that, in a world where impurity is a big business, unless we ourselves are worshipping the living God until our own hearts are set on fire and scorched through with his purity? Blessed are the peacemakers; how will we ever learn that, in a world where war in one country means business for another,, unless the church stands in the middle and says that there is a different way of being human, a different way of ordering our common life? Blessed are the persecuted and insulted for the kingdom's sake, for Jesus' sake; how will that message ever get across if the church is so anxious not to court bad publicity that it refuses ever to say or do anything that might get it into trouble either with the authorities, for being so subversive, or with the revolutionaries, for insisting that the true revolution begins at the foot of the cross?”
― N.T. Wright, For All God's Worth: True Worship and the Calling of the Church

“The optimism of a revolutionary always gives rise to a sense of wonder.”
― Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light

“In actual fact our Russian experience—when I use the word "Russian" I always differentiate it from the word "Soviet"—I have in mind even pre-Soviet, pre-revolutinoary experience—in actual fact it is vitally important for the West, because by some chance of history we have trodden the same path seventy or eighty years before the West. And now it is with a strange sensation that we look at what is happening to you; many social phenomena that happened in Russia before its collapse are being repeated. Our experience of life is of vital importance to the West, but I am not convinced that you are capable of assimilating it without having gone through it to the end yourselves.

You know, one could quote here many examples: for one, a certain retreat by the older generation, yielding their intellectual leadership to the younger generation. It is against the natural order of things for those who are youngest, with the least experience of life, to have the greatest influence in directing the life of society. One can say then that this is what forms the spirit of the age, the current of public opinion, when people in authority, well known professors and scientists, are reluctant to enter into an argument even when they hold a different opinion. It is considered embarrassing to put forward one's counterarguments, lest one become involved. And so there is a certain abdication of responsibility, which is typical here where there is complete freedom....There is now a universal adulation of revolutionaries, the more so the more extreme they are! Similarly, before the revolution, we had in Russia, if not a cult of terror, then a fierce defense of terrorists. People in good positions—intellectuals, professors, liberals—spent a great deal of effort, anger, and indignation in defending terrorists.”
― Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Warning to the West

“A woman is a socialist, who brings revolution and change in the family.”
― Rashid Jorvee

“I want to go!" I explode. "I don't want a tamped-down spirit!" I realize these are the first words I've uttered outside my head this entire meal. Mom beams at me. He cant talk her out of this. There are no surftards there, I know it. Probably only kids whose blood glows. Only revolutionaries.”
― Jandy Nelson, I'll Give You the Sun

“We are the outsiders, the heretics, the rebels, the revolutionaries, the blasphemers, the outcasts, the infidels. We are the Resistance. We are the Truth seekers. We are the Mathematikoi. We are the Hyperboreans. We are the Illuminati. We are contra mundum.”
― Adam Weishaupt, Contra Mundum

“The more that injustice, exploitation, inequality, unemployment, poverty, hunger, and misery prevail in human society, the more Che's stature will grow.
The more that the power of imperialism, hegemonism, domina­tion, and interventionism grow, to the detriment of the most sa­cred rights of the peoples-especially the weak, backward, and poor peoples who for centuries were colonies of the West and sources of slave labor-the more the values Che defended will be upheld.
The more that abuses, selfishness, and alienation exist; the more that Indians, ethnic minorities, women, and immigrants suffer dis­ crimination; the more that children are bought and sold for sex or forced into the workforce in their hundreds of millions; the more that ignorance, unsanitary conditions, insecurity, and homelessness prevail-the more Che's deeply humanistic message will stand out.
The more that corrupt, demagogic, and hypocritical politicians exist anywhere, the more Che's example of a pure, revolutionary, and consistent human being will come through.
The more cowards, opportunists, and traitors there are on the face of the earth, the more Che's personal courage and revolution­ary integrity will be admired.
The more that others lack the ability to fulfill their duty, the more Che's iron willpower will be admired.
The more that some individuals lack the most basic self-respect, the more Che's sense of honor and dignity will be admired.
The more that skeptics abound, the more Che's faith in man will be admired.
The more pessimists there are, the more Che's optimism will be admired.
The more vacillators there are, the more Che's audacity will be admired.
The more that loafers squander the prod­uct of the labor of others, the more Che's austerity, his spirit of study and work, will be admired.”
― Fidel Castro

“Generation to generation, these pseudo-revolutionaries could never handle not being the cool kids. Something was always wrong. No sense of humor, no sense of self, just anger, vitriol, and misery.”
― Caspar Vega, Southern Dust

“On the contrary, all experience shows that revolutionaries come from those who are economically independent, not from factory workers. Very few revolutionary leaders have done manual work, and those who did soon abandoned it for political activities. The factory worker wants higher wages and better conditions, not a revolution. It is the man on his own who wants to remake society, and moreover he can happily defy those in power without economic risk.”
― A.J.P. Taylor, The Communist Manifesto

“Revolutionaries need poets, too.”
― Slavoj Žižek

“If artistic avant-gardes and social revolutionaries have felt a peculiar affinity for one another ever since, borrowing each other’s languages and ideas, it appears to have been insofar as both have remained committed to the idea that the ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently. In this sense, a phrase like “all power to the imagination” expresses the very quintessence of the Left.”
― David Graeber, The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy

“Great revolutions can be done only by those who know very well the great revolutionaries of the past!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“Women make natural anarchists and revolutionaries, because they've always been second-class citizens, kinda having had to claw their way up.”
― Kim Gordon

“The biggest obstacle to all revolutions is usually this sentence: Be patient, bad days will pass, good days will come! This is just a ridiculous sentence! A country in need of revolution needs an immediate revolution, not patience, not even for a second!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“It’s up to Illuminists alone. No one else is coming. We are against everyone. We are enormously outnumbered and surrounded, yet victory is certain to be ours ... because we are the Gnostic Legion of Reason and Knowledge, and we shall command the cosmic forces that can defeat any odds.”
― Adam Weishaupt, Contra Mundum

“Hux was a revolutionary, full of fire and fervor, but revolutionaries' seasons were fleeting”
― Jason Fry

“Harvard historian Crane Brinton (The Anatomy of Revolution) pointed out that revolutionary sentiments generally develop in periods of long-term economic progress, not abject deprivation. When business produces a sharp increase in living standards, the ‘revolution of rising expectations’ leaves workers and farmers impatient for more rapid advancement.”
― Michael Medved, The 10 Big Lies about America

“Generally speaking it is ruled by the Royalists on Mondays, Wednesdays and every other Thursday; in between those, the republican Revolutionaries manage to take over, except once a year when the People's Goat Liberation Army comes down from the hills and attacks the post office.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Time-travelling Caveman

“There are 2 types of revolutionaries: those bred through a rich education, and those bred through a poor education. But there is truly only one revolution, and that is of a populace fed up.”
― Criss Jami

“Yes, but open revolution is another matter. It is one moment in the people’s life, and it is the price we have to pay for all our progress. No doubt fearful things will happen; they must in every revolution. But they will be isolated facts–exceptional features of an exceptional moment.”
― E L Voynich

“I have come to realize that picking up the gun was/is the easy part. The difficult part is the day-to-day organizing, educating, and showing the people by example what needs to be done to create a new society. The hard, painstaking work of changing ourselves into new beings, of loving ourselves and our people, and working with them daily to create a new reality - this is the first revolution, that internal revolution.”
― Safiya Bukhari, The War Before: The True Life Story of Becoming a Black Panther, Keeping the Faith in Prison, and Fighting for Those Left Behind

“When the revolutionaries say they want to ‘change’ the world, they mean they want to heal it, but the conservatives hear the word as ‘destroy’.”
― Sebastyne Alpha