Irresistible Revolution Quotes & Sayings

An artist represents an oppressed people and makes revolution irresistible. — Toni Cade Bambara

Here is the salient fact which distinguishes the English Revolution from all others: that those who wielded irresistible physical force were throughout convinced that it could give them no security. Nothing is more characteristic of the English people than their instinctive reverence even in rebellion for law and tradition. Deep in the nature of the men who had broken the King's power was the conviction that law in his name was the sole foundation on which they could build. — Winston S. Churchill

June Jordan once said something which is just wonderful. I'm paraphrasing her-that her function as a poet was to make revolution irresistible. Well o.k. that is the function of us all, as creative artists, to make the truth, as we see it irresistible. — Audre Lorde

The 1789 Revolution had given the French a political script of unequalled drama. For the better part of the following century the temptation to reenact the play was irresistible. — Niall Ferguson

The purpose of a writer is to make revolution irresistible. — Toni Cade Bambara

The men who rush into undertakings of vast change usually feel they are in possession of some irresistible power. The generation that made the French Revolution had an extravagant conception of the omnipotence of man's reason and the boundless range of his intelligence. Never, says de Tocqueville, had humanity been prouder of itself nor had it ever so much faith in its own omnipotence. — Eric Hoffer

The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible — Toni Cade Bambara

Shane Claiborne, author of The Irresistible Revolution, once surveyed a group of people who identified themselves as "strong followers of Jesus" and asked them, "Did Jesus spend time with the poor?" Around 80 percent replied in the affirmative, leaving a disturbing 20 percent of so-called strong followers of Jesus who think Jesus didn't spend time with the poor. That this could be the case should remind us of the levels of Christian ignorance about our founder and Lord. But the more disturbing fact is that Claiborne asked the same group, "Do you spend time with the poor?" Only 2 percent replied that they did. There is for many an almost complete disconnect between our beliefs about Jesus and our actions. This disconnection lies at the nub of the problem facing the church. — Michael Frost

It was not reason that besieged Troy; it was not reason that sent forth the Saracen from the desert to conquer the world; that inspired the crusades; that instituted the monastic orders; it was not reason that produced the Jesuits; above all, it was not reason that created the French Revolution. Man is only great when he acts from the passions; never irresistible but when he appeals to the imagination. — Benjamin Disraeli

But they will build no more barricades, they will break no more soldiers' heads with paving-stones. Louis Napoleon has taken care of all that. He is annihilating the crooked streets and building in their stead noble boulevards as straight as an arrow - avenues which a cannon ball could traverse from end to end without meeting an obstruction more irresistible than the flesh and bones of men - boulevards whose stately edifices will never afford refuges and plotting places for starving, discontented revolution breeders. Five of these great thoroughfares radiate from one ample centre - a centre which is exceedingly well adapted to the accommodation of heavy artillery. The mobs used to riot there, but they must seek another rallying-place in future. And this ingenious Napoleon paves the streets of his great cities with a smooth, compact composition of asphaltum and sand. No more barricades of flagstones - no more assaulting his Majesty's troops with cobbles. — Mark Twain