Rebellion Quotes

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.

I'm agnostic because I went through the usual process of parents insisting you go to church, and yet they didn't. So there's me, sitting in the chairs, thinking, 'Jeez, why am I here? I'd rather be playing tennis, seriously.'

Comrades! The revolt by the five kulak administrative regions must be suppressed without mercy. The interest of the entire revolution demands this, because we have now before us the "final decisive battle" against the kulaks. We need to set an example. You need to hang (most definitely hang, so that the public sees) at least 100 notorious kulaks, the rich, the bloodsuckers. This needs to be accomplished in such a way, that people for hundreds of miles around will see, tremble, know and scream out: let's choke and strangle those blood-sucking kulaks. Telegraph us acknowledging receipt and execution of this. Yours, Lenin…. P.S. Find some of the tougher people for this.

He who kills even one unbeliever of those who rule over us, whether he does it secretly or openly, shall be rewarded by God. And let every Moslem, in whatever part of the world he may be, swear a solemn oath to kill at least three or four of the infidels who rule over him, for they are the enemies of God and of the faith. Let every Moslem know that his reward for doing so shall be doubled by the God who created heaven and earth. A Moslem who does this shall be saved from the terrors of the day of Judgment, of the resurrection of the dead. Who is the man who can refuse such a recompense for such a small deed? ... Yet the time has come that we should rise up as the rising of one man, in one hand a sword, in the other a gun, in his pocket balls of fire and death-dealing missiles, and in his heart the light of the faith.

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

Men fight and lose the battle, and the thing they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it turns out to be not what they meant, other men have to fight for what they meant under another name.

The last king should be strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

What is Communism? The Soviet Republic plus electrification.

Protest is when I say I don't like this. Resistance is when I put an end to what I don't like. Protest is when I say I refuse to go along with this anymore. Resistance is when I make sure everybody else stops going along too.

The only way a revolution can triumph is through the force of arms.

A secure and independent agricultural peasantry is the only base on which a people rises.

It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.

I never saw any of the diminutive Portuguese [slave masters], with their murderous countenances, without almost wishing for Brazil to follow the example of Haiti; and, considering the enormous healthy-looking black population, it will be wonderful if, at some future day, it does not take place.

If we rail and kick against it and grow bitter, we won't change the inevitable; but we will change ourselves. I know. I have tried it. I once refused to accept an inevitable situation with which I was confronted. I played the fool and railed against it, and rebelled. I turned my nights into hells of insomnia. I brought upon myself everything I didn't want. Finally, after a year of self-torture, I had to accept what I knew from the outset I couldn't possible alter.

Radicals don't care about the institutions. They are looking for an ideological crusade. Traditions don't matter.

Every revolution has its counter-revolution.

Rape was an insurrectionary act. It delighted me that I was defying and trampling upon the white man's law, upon his system of values, and that I was defiling his women.

Blood alone moves the wheels of history.

It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.

When a people consider themselves compelled by circumstances or by oppression, to appeal to arms and resort to their natural rights, they necessarily submit their cause to the great tribunal of public opinion.

Every year humanity takes a step towards Communism. Maybe not you, but … your grandson will surely be a Communist.

Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God.

The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat ... [is a] state that is democratic for the proletariat and the poor in general.

The majority is never right. Never, I tell you! That's one of these lies in society that no free and intelligent man can help rebelling against. Who are the people that make up the biggest proportion of the population -- the intelligent ones or the fools? I think we can agree it's the fools, no matter where you go in this world, it's the fools that form the overwhelming majority.

The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.