The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.
—Abbie Hoffman
Don’t do it. Don’t go to that job you hate. Do something you love today. Ride a roller coaster. Swim in the ocean. Go to the airport and get on the next flight to anywhere just for the fun of it. Maybe stop a spinning globe with your finger and then plan a trip to that very spot; even if it’s in the middle of the ocean you can go by boat. Eat some type of ethnic food you’ve never even heard of. Stop a stranger and ask her to explain her greatest fears and her secret hopes and aspirations in detail and then tell her you care because she is a human being. Sit down on the sidewalk and make pictures with colorful chalk. Close your eyes and try to see the world with your nose—allow smells to be your vision. Catch up on your sleep. Call an old friend you haven’t seen in years. Roll up your pant legs and walk into the sea. See a foreign film. Feed squirrels. Do anything! Something! Because you start a revolution one decision at a time, with each breath you take. Just don’t go back to that miserable place you go every day.
—Matthew Quick in Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
In America the word revolution is used to sell pantyhose.
—Rita Mae Brown
I am, and always have been, a revolutionary writer, because our laws make law impossible; our liberties destroy all freedom; our property is organized robbery; our morality is an impudent hypocrisy; our wisdom is administered by inexperienced or mal-experienced dupes, our power wielded by cowards and weaklings, and our honor false in all its points. I am an enemy of the existing order for good reasons.
—George Bernard Shaw
All revolutionary changes are unthinkable until they happen—and then they are understood to be inevitable.
—Theodore Roszak
There are two things to remember about a revolution: first, we're gonna get our asses kicked, and second, we're gonna win.
—Unknown
Only the truth is revolutionary.
—Graffiti, Paris, May 1968
Sometimes you plodded through life with nothing changing from one month to the next no matter how much you yearned for a revolution to erupt beneath your feet. And sometimes your whole world imploded and rebuilt itself in a matter of seconds.
—Laura Kaye in Hard as It Gets
Art is either plagiarism or revolution.
—Paul Gauguin
It's a sad and stupid thing to have to proclaim yourself a revolutionary just to be a decent man.
—David Harris
Revolutions are not made: they come. A revolution is as natural a growth as an oak. It comes out of the past. Its foundations are laid far back.
—Wendell Phillips
Revolution is not a onetime event.
—Audre Lorde
The whole world is in revolt. Soon there will be only five Kings left—the King of England, the King of Spades, The King of Clubs, the King of Hearts, and the King of Diamonds.
—King Farouk of Egypt
Remember, remember always that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
Truth has a power of its own.… A poem can inspire a movement. A pamphlet can spark a revolution. Civil disobedience can arouse people and provoke us to think.
—Howard Zinn