Jean Cocteau Quotes

Resisting is worth doing.

You cannot make a revolution with silk gloves.

If you try to fight the course, it will beat you.

There is a weapon we can fight with. That is the weapon of political action.

I can't let time move on without fighting tooth and nail and hopefully being a part of a revolution that is positive.

I was now resolved to do everything in my power to defeat the system.

To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.

When you're a catalyst for change, you make enemies - and I'm proud of the ones I've got.

Only force would produce social change.

Agitated by revolutionary movements, these grow in proportion to the force that resists them.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress....This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

Resistance to unwanted circumstances has the power to keep those circumstances alive and well for a very long time.

Indignation does no good unless it is backed with a club of sufficient size to awe the opposition.

Subversion is what I do.

Here, there's more of a movement, it doesn't mean we're winning any more, but we're at least fighting.

Non-violence is very weak in the theoretical sense; it cannot defend itself. But it is most powerful in the action situation where people are using non-violence because they want desperately to bring about some change. Non-violence in action is a very potent force and it can't be stopped. The people who are struggling have the complete say-so. No man-made law, no human ruler, no army can destroy this. There is no way it can be destroyed... And so, if we have the capacity to endure, if we have the patience, things will change.

When you fight something, you're tied to it forever. As long as you're fighting it, you’re giving it power.

The resistance is not something to be avoided, it's something to seek out.

Changes and progress very rarely are gifts from above. They come out of struggles from below.

It's so much easier to throw rocks than it is to govern.

Power is never so overwhelming that there's no room for resistance.

What can and doesn't have to be always, at the end, surrenders to something that has to be.

We accept the world in order to change it. If you do not accept, then what are you going to change?

Most people are rowing against the current of life. Instead of turning the boat around, all they need to do is let go of the oars.

Writing is powerful. Whether it's a little girl hiding from the Nazis in an attic, or Amnesty International writing letters on behalf of political prisoners, the power of telling stories is usually what causes change.