Peter Gabriel Quotes

I'm inspired by people like Nelson Mandela. Can you imagine - you know how racist America was back then - imagine how racism was in South Africa when he had to stand up and say what he had to say. That's bravery beyond comprehension.

I know exactly what I will do. I will go and work with the Congress of South African Students.

It seems the only way to gain attention today is to organize a march and protest something.

Solidarity is an attitude of resistance, I suppose, or it should be.

Poetry is the lifeblood of rebellion, revolution, and the raising of consciousness.

When I die, don't let my death stop the resistance.

There's nothing automatic about political change, about liberation.

This is a revolution, damnit! We're going to have to offend somebody!

Insurrection of thought always precedes insurrection of arms.

We have been saying "Freedom" for six years. What we are going to start saying now is "Black Power". We have begged the President. We've begged the federal government. That's all we've been doing, begging and begging. From now on, when they ask you what you want, you know what to tell them.

Ready for the revolution!

How many of you are willing to go to jail for freedom?

History dictates that unresponsive governments force ordinary people to do extraordinary things.

In any social revolution the one thing that keeps it alive is hope.

If our Constitution is destroyed, if our right to free speech is denied, then we have the right to use whatever means necessary to survive and advance our position.

In all of history, there has always been a time and a place where patriots rise up against the decree of the elites and shout, 'No more... get your hands off my freedom!'

There is no way a spirit of resistance that has sunk so deep in the population can be repressed.

Well, protest is central to the evolution of black American culture. It was protest that really finally won our freedom for us. Beyond that, it's always interesting to note that it expanded the idea of democracy.

All the way back to Dartmouth, I was part of the insurgency.

Even on songs we've got that are about a girl, there's always something there that's a call to insurrection.

In Chile, they had penas, where the community would come together to sing and plan how they were going to overthrow the government. There's a real hopefulness in that community style of organizing.

Tiananmen did not fail.

A little rebellion is a good thing.

It is not necessary to wait until all conditions for making revolution exist; the insurrection can create them.

It was spine tingling, actually, when you saw how people kept saying, "Release Nelson Mandela," and meaning really, "Release all of our political prisoners."