Revolutionist Quotes

A revolutionist is one who desires to discard the existing social order and try another. ~ George Bernard Shaw

If you don't begin to be a revolutionist at the age of twenty, then at fifty you will be a most impossible old fossil. If you area red revolutionary at the age of twenty, you have some chance of being up-to-date when you are forty! ~ George Bernard Shaw

The favourite evolutionary argument finds its best answer in the axe. The Evolutionist says, "Where do you draw the line?" the Revolutionist answers, "I draw it HERE: exactly between your head and body." There must at any given moment be an abstract right and wrong if any blow is to be struck; there must be something eternal if there is to be anything sudden. Therefore ~ G.K. Chesterton

If you want to be a true revolutionist, you must first quit chewing gum, because revolution requires high seriousness! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

The fist of a revolutionist must be hard like a gravestone; if not, his own gravestone will soon be erected! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

A philosopher and a social revolutionist, a painter, a singer, a poet, a writer, and a country gentleman, all engaged in sipping honey from life. ~ Elizabeth Breuer

He was a conservative all right, but invariably he gave the impression that he was a conservative because he was surrounded by liberals; that he had been a revolutionist if that had been required in order to be socially disruptive. ~ William F. Buckley, Jr.

It happens to many like that," he said. "I have seen them. But you have to show them so much injustice first ... Nobody wants to believe that the world is cruel - or that one's own kind are cruel. Not to know cruelty is to remain innocent, eh? And we should all like to remain innocent. A revolutionist is a man who, perhaps, fails to keep his innocence but so desperately wants it back that he seeks to create a world where all shall be innocent in that way. ~ Michael Moorcock

Art is either a plagiarist or a revolutionist. ~ Paul Gauguin

Feminism means revolution and I am a revolutionist. ~ Frances Perkins

The Revolutionist is a doomed man. He has no private interests, no affairs, sentiments, ties, property nor even a name of his own. His entire being is devoured by one purpose, one thought, one passion - the revolution. Heart and soul, not merely by word but by deed, he has severed every link with the social order and with the entire civilized world; with the laws, good manners, conventions, and morality of that world. He is its merciless enemy and continues to inhabit it with only one purpose - to destroy it. ~ Sergey Nechayev

The first duty of a revolutionist is to get away with it. The second duty is to eat breakfast. I ain't going. ~ Abbie Hoffman

The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition. Thus we have two great types
the advanced person who rushes us into ruin, and the retrospective person who admires the ruins. He admires them especially by moonlight, not to say moonshine. Each new blunder of the progressive or prig becomes instantly a legend of immemorial antiquity for the snob. This is called the balance, or mutual check, in our Constitution. ~ G.K. Chesterton

But the new rebel is a sceptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be really a revolutionist. And ~ G.K. Chesterton

You," Said Dr. Yavitch, "are a middle-road liberal, and you haven't the slightest idea what you want. I, being a revolutionist, know exactly what I want
and what I want now is a drink. ~ Sinclair Lewis

With all his sincerity and devotion, the authentic, absolute atheist is after all only an abortive saint, and at the same time, a mistaken revolutionist. ~ Jacques Maritain

ZOE
given some liberty from heaven God
young and a rebel
Is this why you chose me
up against it all
I wonder what's in store
for this rebel you say I reveal?
but I don't think I have that
rebel appeal

but I am radical in a heavenly
sort of way
and all the other angels do
look up to me
but only every other day

and you still love me God
with delight
you often say
you once said
"when you grow
then you will know
as the rebel in you will show"
this rebel you say I will reveal
I don't think I have that rebel appeal

but I am radical in a
moral religious purity way
but all the other angels did say
that I really should read that Bible
before I pray
my morals do seem to sway

sent to this world of giveaway
this world of moral decay
get these sinners back on side
fixated on my holy ride

this rebel you say I reveal
I don't think I have that rebel appeal
I know this rebel you want to see
but this rebel I don't think it is in me

revolutionist
revolutionary
rebellious
rebelliously
rebel

I don't think I am
but I do like to sell God's plan ~ R.M. Romarney

But the new rebel is a skeptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be really a revolutionist. And the fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it. . . . As a politician, he will cry out that war is a waste of life, and then, as a philosopher, that all life is waste of time. A Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant, and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself. . . . The man of this school goes first to a political meeting, where he complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts; then he takes his hat and umbrella and goes on to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically are beasts. In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite skeptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything. ~ G.K. Chesterton

To make an omelette, you need not only those broken eggs but someone 'oppressed' to beat them: every revolutionist is presumed to understand that, and also every woman, which either does or does not make 51 percent of the population of the United States a potentially revolutionary class. ~ Joan Didion

Revolutionists amke a reform, Conservatives only conserve the reform. They never reform the reform, which is often very much wanted. ~ G.K. Chesterton

We must have several word-signs," said Syme seriously -- "words that we are likely to want, fine shades of meaning. My favourite word is 'coeval.' What's yours?"
"Do stop playing the goat," said the Professor plaintively. "You don't know how serious this is."
"'Lush,' too, " said Syme, shaking his head sagaciously, "we must have ' lush' -- word applied to grass, don't you know?"
"Do you imagine," asked the Professor furiously, "that we are going to talk to Dr. Bull about grass?"
"There are several ways in which the subject could be approached," said Syme reflectively, "and the word introduced without appearing forced. We might say, ' Dr. Bull, as a revolutionist, you remember that a tyrant once advised us to eat grass; and indeed many of us, looking on the fresh lush grass of summer--"'
"Do you understand," said the other, "that this is a tragedy?"
"Perfectly," replied Syme; "always be comic in a tragedy. What the deuce else can you do? I wish this language of yours had a wider scope. I suppose we could not extend it from the fingers to the toes? That would involve pulling off our boots and socks during the conversation, which however unobtrusively performed -- "
"Syme," said his friend with a stern simplicity, "go to bed! ~ G.K. Chesterton