Overthrowing Quotes & Sayings

In his final year in office, Clinton decided that his contribution to Middle East peace would lie not in the removal of Saddam Hussein but in a grand attempt to resolve the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel. With this, he missed his last chance to deal forcefully with the man he was publicly committed to overthrowing. — Arthur L. Herman

We [Americans] move about the world arrogantly, calling wars when we want, overthrowing governments when we want. There is a price to be paid for it
look at 9/11. [That] wasn't just bin Laden. Bin Laden didn't come from the abstract. He came from somewhere, and if you look where ... you'll see America's hand of villainy. — Harry Belafonte

Here is an example to help you understand the efficacy of the Rosary. You remember the story of David who vanquished Goliath. What steps did the young Israelite take to overthrow the giant? He struck him in the middle of the forehead with a pebble from his sling. If we regard the Philistine as representing evil and all its powers: heresy, impurity, pride, we can consider the little stones from the sling capable of overthrowing the enemy as symbolizing the Aves of the Rosary. — Columba Marmion

Starting with Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia, by 1760, there had been eighteen uprisings aimed at overthrowing colonial governments. There had also been six black rebellions, from South Carolina to New York, and forty riots of various origins. By this time also, there emerged, according to Jack Greene, "stable, coherent, effective and acknowledged local political and social elites." And by the 1760s, this local leadership saw the possibility of directing much of the rebellious energy against England and her local officials. It was not a conscious conspiracy, but an accumulation of tactical responses. — Howard Zinn

I heard you before, but I could not immediately determine what to say in reply. You wanted me, I know, to say 'Yes,' that you might have the pleasure of despising my taste; but I always delight in overthrowing those kind of schemes, and cheating a person of their premeditated contempt. — Jane Austen

A revolution is not a dinner party, nor a literary composition, nor painting nor embroidering. It cannot be done so delicately, so leisurely, so gentlemanly and gently, kindly, politely and modestly. Revolution is insurrection, the violent action of one class overthrowing the power of another. An agrarian revolution is a revolution by the peasantry to overthrow the power of the feudal landlord class. If the peasants do not apply great force, the power of the landlords, built up over thousands of years, can never be uprooted. — Mao Zedong

At college my three main interests were - in descending order of importance - a steady supply of recreational drugs, a 2-S draft deferment, and overthrowing the Nixon administration. — Garry Trudeau

Gandhi was only minding his own business when he took a walk to get some salt and ended up overthrowing the British Empire. You can't set out to overthrow an empire, but if you have to get some salt then get some salt. If you have to write some independent songs that are honest, just write them. If you have to do a day job stacking shelves, so be it. — David Knopfler

I think he [Vaclav Havel] is one of the great figures of the 20th century. He is one of the people that was able to be a part of overthrowing a dictatorial system by talking to people and understanding what the elements of democracy really are and respect for each other and elevating. — Judy Woodruff

When Husni Zaim seized power from Shukri al-Quwatli on 30 March 1949, Syria's economy was a parlous state and its army had been beaten the previous November by the Israelis. Zaim knew that he needed to take action on both fronts fast. After overthrowing al-Quwatli bloodlessly, he set out to open peace talks with the Israelis and mend relations with the French via a currency agreement and an arms deal that would pave the way for renewed French influence in the former mandate. But Zaim's reign did not last long. One hundred and thirty-seven days after he had taken power, on 14 August he too was overthrown and executed. — James Barr

I'm in a situation with this girl that's as hopeless as overthrowing the Bush administration. — Aziz Ansari

She watched the stream of hot black liquid fall, and felt suddenly, painfully alive to what she had risked in overthrowing her life for the man walking away into the night with another woman. — J.K. Rowling

How we feel, how we've been treated, what we do, why we do it - everything about our lives is important. We are valuable players in the cosmic drama he directs, and we are not wrong to be concerned with how we're getting on. But God matters more. He invites us to enter into relationship with him on his terms. He invites us to join him in achieving his great purpose: the overthrowing of evil and the bringing together of all things in Christ. He invites us, in short, to find him. And he lets us know that in the process of finding him, we'll find ourselves. — Larry Crabb

You see, the only thing the good people are good at is overthrowing the bad people. And you're good at that, I'll grant you. But the trouble is that it's the only thing you're good at. One day it's the ringing of the bells and the casting down of the evil tyrant, and the next it's everyone sitting around complaining that ever since the tyrant was overthrown no one's been taking out the trash. Because the bad people know how to plan. It's part of the specification, you might say. Every evil tyrant has a plan to rule the world. The good people don't seem to have the knack. — Terry Pratchett

But we all die, and all death is violent, the overthrowing of the state of life, so why did that year [1968]seem so terrible? Are King or Kennedy or some peasant folk in a village more important than the starved-out of Biafra, the names on the Detroit homicide list? Maybe I'm playing an intellectual game, marking out one year or two on a calendar as special in horror so I can add that they were also special in significance, and thus compensate for the horror, or even redeem it. Humans are fond of finding ways to be grateful for their suffering, calling falls fortunate and deaths resurrection. It's not a bad idea, I guess: since you're going to have the suffering anyway, you might as well be grateful for it. Sometimes, though, I think if we didn't expect the suffering, we wouldn't have so much of it. — Marilyn French

The right of revolution is an inherent one. When people are oppressed by their government, it is a natural right they enjoy to relieve themselves of oppression, if they are strong enough, whether by withdrawal from it, or by overthrowing it and substituting a government more acceptable. — Ulysses S. Grant

The boycott of parliamentary institutions on the part of anarchists and semianarchists is dictated by a desire not to submit their weakness to a test on the part of the masses, thus preserving their right to an inactive hauteur which makes no difference to anybody. A revolutionary party can turn its back to a parliament only if it has set itself the immediate task of overthrowing the existing regime. — Leon Trotsky

Ivy dreams sullenly and alone of overthrowing the cities. — Lord Dunsany

Protest to be effective, must be followed by resolute action and at this crisis in world history when materialistic energy aims at overthrowing spiritual energy and moral values, action needs to develop into a world crusade for the Spiritual Humanity. — Vida Goldstein

When I reflect with what slow and limited supplies the stream of science hath hitherto descended to us, how difficult to be obtained by those most ardent in its search, how certain to be neglected by all who regard their ease; how liable to be diverted, altogether dried up, by the invasions of barbarism; can I look forward without wonder and astonishment to the lot of a succeeding generation on whom knowledge will descend like the first and second rain, uninterrupted, unabated, unbounded; fertilizing some grounds, and overflowing others; changing the whole form of social life; establishing and overthrowing religions; erecting and destroying kingdoms. — Walter Scott

Withholding of payment of taxes is one of the quickest methods of overthrowing a government. — Mahatma Gandhi

William Wilberforce ... w as a great man who impacted the Western world as few others have done. Blessed with brains, charm, influence and initiative, much wealth ... he put evangelism on Britain's map as a power for social change, first by overthrowing the slave trade almost single-handed and then by generating a stream of societies for doing good and reducing evil in public life ... To forget such men is foolish. — J.I. Packer

What was civilization ever, really, but the attempt by man to talk himself into being good? Only good, mind you. The rest had to be shoved somewhere out of sight, under the rug. Which History indeed did, at times politely, at times police-ly, and yet something was always sticking out, breaking loose, overthrowing. — Stanislaw Lem

In August 1917, white, Black, and Muskogee tenant farmers and sharecroppers in several eastern and southern Oklahoma counties took up arms to stop conscription, with a larger stated goal of overthrowing the US government to establish a socialist commonwealth. These more radically minded grassroots socialists had organized their own Working Class Union (WCU), with Anglo-American, African American, and Indigenous Muskogee farmers forming a kind of rainbow alliance. Their plan was to march to Washington, DC, motivating millions of working people to arm themselves and to join them along the way. After a day of dynamiting oil pipelines and bridges in southeastern Oklahoma, the men and their families created a liberated zone where they ate, sang hymns, and rested. By the following day, heavily armed posses supported by police and militias stopped the revolt, which became known as the Green Corn Rebellion. — Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

The overthrowing of slavery, then, is through the transformation of men and women by the gospel rather than through merely changing an economic system. We've all seen what can happen when you merely overthrow an economic system and impose a new order. The whole communist dream was the have a 'revolutionary man' followed by the 'new man.' Trouble is, they never found the 'new man.' They got rid of the oppressors of the peasants, but that didn't mean the peasants were suddenly free--they were just under a new regime of darkness. In the final analysis, if you want lasting change, you've got to transform the hearts of human beings. And that was Jesus' mission. — Lee Strobel

If the Pope were to deny that the death penalty could be an exercise of retributive justice, he would be overthrowing the tradition of two millenia of Catholic thought, denying the teaching of several previous popes, and contradicting the teaching of Scripture. — Avery Dulles

The aim of marriage, as I feel it, is not by means of demolition and overthrowing of all boundaries to create a hasty communion, the good marriage is rather one in which each appoints the other as guardian of his solitude and shews him this greatest trust that he has to confer. A togetherness of two human beings is an impossibility and, where it does seem to exist, a limitation, a mutual compromise which robs one side or both sides of their fullest freedom and development. But granted the consciousness that even between the closest people there persist infinite distances, a wonderful living side by side can arise for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of seeing one another in whole shape and before a great sky! — Rainer Maria Rilke

Courbet comes in 1849 with the intention of overthrowing past art and constructing it anew. While he speaks only of realism, of which he proclaims himself the messiah, his pictures show pre-eminently those qualities which are learned in the museums. — Jules Breton

He actually did it, didn't he?" Marsh said, shaking his head in wonder. "That bastard. There are two things I'll never forgive him for. The first is for stealing my dream of overthrowing the Final Empire, then actually succeeding at it."
Vin paused. "And the second?"
Marsh turned spike-heads towards her. "Getting himself killed to do it. — Brandon Sanderson

A heavily armed citizenry is not about overthrowing the government; it is about preventing the government from overthrowing liberty. — Lawrence Hunter

I am struggling to maintain the government, not to overthrow it. I am struggling especially to prevent others from overthrowing it. — Abraham Lincoln

Both for the production on a mass scale of this communist consciousness, and for the success of the cause itself, the alteration of men on a mass scale is necessary, an alteration which can only take place in a practical movement, a revolution; this revolution is necessary, therefore, not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew. — Karl Marx

Overthrowing capitalism is too small for us. We must overthrow the whole ... patriarch! — Gloria Steinem

If overthrowing some five thousand years of patriarchy seems like a big order, just focus on celebrating each self-respect step along the way — Eve Ensler

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. — Jonathan Sacks

All this Americanising and mechanising has been for the purpose of overthrowing the past. And now look at America, tangled in her own barbed wire, and mastered by her own machines. — D.H. Lawrence

Any international system must have two key elements for it to work. One, it has to have a certain equilibrium of power that makes overthrowing the system difficult and costly. Secondly, it has to have a sense of legitimacy. — Henry A. Kissinger

The political form of a society wherein the proletariat is victorious in overthrowing the bourgeoisie will be a democratic republic. — Vladimir Lenin

Oh!" said she, "I heard you before, but I could not immediately determine what to say in reply. You wanted me, I know, to say 'Yes,' that you might have the pleasure of despising my taste; but I always delight in overthrowing those kind of schemes, and cheating a person of their premeditated contempt. I have, therefore made up my mind to tell you, that I do not want to dance a reel at all--and now despise me if you dare."
"Indeed I do not dare. — Jane Austen

The people, especially when moderately instructed, are the only safe, because the only honest, depositaries of the public rights, and should therefore be introduced into the administration of them in every function to which they are sufficient; they will err sometimes and accidentally, but never designedly, and with a systematic and persevering purpose of overthrowing the free principles of the government. — Thomas Jefferson

For once the commodities have been sold that were already on the market when their price was authoritatively fixed at a level below that demanded by the situation of the market, then the emptied store-rooms are not filled again. Charging more than a certain price is prohibited, but producing and selling has not been made compulsory. There are no longer any sellers. The market ceases to function. But this means that economic organization based on division of labour becomes impossible. The level of money-prices cannot be fixed without overthrowing the system of social division of labour. — Ludwig Von Mises

Air forces offered the possibility of striking a the enemy's economic and moral centres without having first to achieve 'the destruction of the enemy's main forces on the battlefield'. Air-power might attain a direct end by indirect means - hopping over opposition instead of overthrowing it. — B.H. Liddell Hart

If any sensual weakness arise, we are to yield all our sound forces to the overthrowing of so unnatural a rebellion; wherein how can we want courage, since we are to deal against so feeble an adversary, that in itself is nothing but weakness? Nay, we are to resolve that if reason direct it, we must do it, and if we must do it, we will do it; for to say "I cannot" is childish, and "I will not" is womanish. — Philip Sidney

A political satirist's job is to draw blood. I'm not so much interested in politics as I am in overthrowing the government. — Mort Sahl

A nation not of men but of laws, intoned John Adams as he, among other lawyers, launched what has easily become the most demented society ever consciously devised by intelligent men. We are now enslaves by laws. We are governed by lawyers. We create little but litigate much. Our monuments are the ever-expanding prisons, where millions languish for having committed victimless crimes or for simply not playing the game of plausible deniability (aka lying) with a sufficiently good legal team. What began as a sort of Restoration comedy, The Impeachment of a President, on a frivolous, irrelevant matter, is suddenly turning very black indeed, and all our political arrangements are at risk as superstitious Christian fundamentalists and their corporate manipulators seem intent on overthrowing two presidential elections in a Senate trial. This is no longer comedy. This is usurpation. — Gore Vidal

If the newspapers are useful in overthrowing tyrants, it is only to establish a tyranny of their own. — James F. Cooper