Social Uprising Quotes

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

A young man who isn't a socialist hasn't got a heart; an old man who is a socialist hasn't got a head.

Unless we make revolutionary reforms, some day — in some unknown serra — some unknown Fidel Castro will rise up in Brazil.

No people in the world ever did achieve their freedom by goody-goody talk and moral suasion: it being immutable law that all revolutions that will succeed must being in blood, whatever may answer afterward.

Revolution is not a dinner party, not an essay, nor a painting, nor a piece of embroidery; it cannot be advanced softly, gradually, carefully, considerately, respectfully, politely, plainly and modestly.

A great revolution is never the fault of the people, but of the government.

Bloody revolutions are solid; bloodless ones are not permanent. But we have shed sufficient blood to come to this revolution. It has been shed not only on battlefields, but within the country…There have been many risings, all of which have been suppressed. Let us hope that there will be no more bloodshed. The first duty of our educated people is to enlighten and guide the opponents of our happy revolution.

If we can’t sit at the table of democracy, then we’ll knock the fucking legs off. But before we tear it completely down, they will move to build a better one, rather than see this one destroyed.

The Congress decisively rejects terrorism, i.e., the system of individual political assassinations, as being a method of political struggle which is most inexpedient at the present time, diverting the best forces from the urgent and imperatively necessary work of organization and agitation, destroying contact between the revolutionaries and the masses of the revolutionary classes of the population, and spreading both among the revolutionaries themselves and the population in general utterly distorted ideas of the aims and methods of struggle against the autocracy.

Cultural change always precedes political change.

Freedom is not won by merely overthrowing a tyrannical ruler or an oppressive regime. That is usually only the prelude to a new tyranny, a new oppression.

How can you make a revolution without executions?

Peaceful surrender of power by the bourgeoisie is possible, if it is convinced that resistance is hopeless and if it prefers to save its skin. It is much more likely, of course, that even in small states socialism will not be achieved without civil war, and for that reason the only program of international Social-Democracy must be recognition of civil war, though violence is, of course, alien to our ideals.

There's no single movement out there. It's not like in the '60s, when Revolver came out and that's just it for the next year.

It is marvelous that I have walked for five years along the precipices of the Revolution without falling over them, and that I am still living; and I rest my head calmly upon the pillow of my writings... I have dreamed of a Republic such as all the world would have adored. I could never have believed that men could be so ferocious and so unjust.

Muslims have been subjected to so many tyrants and oppressive regimes. That's what the Arab Spring was about, but the problem comes in trying to direct a revolution.

You cannot make a revolution with silk gloves.

Revolution is glorified by intellectuals, apotheosized by poets, sanctified by visionaries, and bled white by politicians.

I have against me the bourgeois, the military and the diplomats, and for me, only the people who take the Metro.

Communism cannot be imposed by force.

Had it not been for the groundswell of support by the people of India, we would not have seen such a huge exercise of demonetisation bounce off without a single riot or a single law and order issue.

A political revolution must proceed simultaneously with the nationalist revolution. When we overthrow the Manchu regime, we will achieve not only a nationalist revolution against the Manchus but also a political revolution against monarchy. They are not to be carried out at two different times.

If reforms do not come when people are at peace, of course, they have to come through violent upheavals, so as I looked out I thought: "Thank God, that this nation has had the courage to face the need of changes before we reached the point where bloodshed was the only way to achieve a change.

A mighty influence is abroad, surging and heaving the world.

When twenty years ago a vague terror went over the earth and the word socialism began to be heard, I thought and still think that fear was translated into doctrines that had no proper place in the Constitution or the common law.