The 91 Best Phrases Of Revolution And Social Change
Revolutions are paradigm shifts in which a radical transformation occurs in a cultural area or in society in general. They often generate confrontation because of the contradictions they overcome, but they also make progress more likely.
In this article you will find a selection of revolution phrases that capture in words the ideas and conception of the world associated with the revolutionary change of different stages of history, at the hands of important historical figures such as John F. Kennedy, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Lenin, Kemal Ataturk or Karl Marx, among others.
In the compilation of phrases about the revolution that you will find in the following lines, no specific order has been established in obedience to a specific criterion. All of them can lead us to reflect on how the social and economic context transforms our way of thinking and vice versa.
1. Better to die fighting for freedom than to be a prisoner every day of your life. (Bob Marley)
One of Bob Marley’s most remembered phrases, referring to the necessity of insubordination and non-obedience in cases where there is injustice.
2. The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is rotten. You have to make it fall. (Che Guevara)
Against the deterministic view of revolutionary change: it will not simply happen unless people actively move to make it happen.
3. A revolution is an idea taken by bayonets. (Napoleon Bonaparte)
Napoleon, against the idealist idea that radical changes in society come through the simple exchange of ideas.
4. Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. (John F. Kennedy)
The more a set of needs is oppressed and the more rights are prevented from being exercised, the more it becomes easier for clearly violent revolutions to break out.
5. A revolution is not a bed of roses. A revolution is a fight between past and future. (Fidel Castro)
Fidel Castro talks about the confrontations inherent to revolutions.
6. When the dictatorship is a fact, the revolution becomes a right. (Victor Hugo)
These radical changes can be understood as a rejection of an entire system that, although it is well established and can be considered “normal,” is unfair and harmful to the majority.
7. You can kill a revolutionary but you can never kill the revolution. (Fred Hampton)
Hampton distinguishes between the individuals and contexts that drive revolutionary changes.
8. It is better to die standing than to live on your knees. (Emiliano Zapata)
9. The greatest and most powerful revolutions often begin very quietly, hidden in the shadows. (Richelle Mead)
About the paradoxical nature of radical changes when they are in their initial stage.
10. The first duty of a man is to think for himself. (Jose Marti)
Not depending on the approval of others and seeing beyond the limitations of a culture does not have to be a purely individualistic act; It may also end up benefiting everyone.
11. The only way to support a revolution is to make your own. (Abbie Hoffman)
Individual wills are also reflected in revolutions.
12. You don’t change things by fighting the existing reality. You change something by building a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. (Buckminster Fuller)
The simple act of destroying does not have to bring something new.
13. Sometimes you have to pick up a gun to put down a gun. (Malcolm X)
A reflection that characterizes the rejection of unconditional non-violence by this Malcolm
14. Poverty is the father of revolution and crime. (Aristotle)
Poverty creates confrontation, according to the Greek philosopher.
15. The sin of silence when they should have protested makes men cowards. (Abraham Lincoln)
Irresponsibilities not only come through action, they also come through non-action when what we have to do is act.
16. Every revolution seems impossible at the beginning and, after its occurrence, it was inevitable. (Bill Ayers)
These changes also affect our historical perspective.
17. Societies in decline are of no use to visionaries. (Anais Nin)
An interesting aphorism about progress.
18. The end could justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end. (Leon Trotsky)
If the goal is not sustained, there is no discussion about the sacrifices necessary to achieve it.
19. The revolution never goes backwards. (William Henry Steward)
Another interesting aphorism about change.
20. The revolution is not something fixed in an ideology, nor something in a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit. (Abbie Hoffman)
Hoffman sees the revolution as something inherent to the historical development of societies
21. There is no such thing as a nonviolent revolution. (Malcolm X)
Another of Malcolm X’s phrases about the revolution.
22. The most heroic language worldwide is revolution. (Eugene V. Debs)
About the tendency to transform by investing great efforts in it.
23. If you want to rebel, rebel from within the system. That is much more powerful than rebelling from the outside. (Marie Lu)
An opinion regarding the classic inside-outside distinction when talking about human organizational systems.
24. The revolution introduced me to art, and in turn, art introduced me to the revolution. (Albert Einstein)
A personal reflection by this brilliant scientist.
25. Every generation needs a new revolution. (Thomas Jefferson)
Each generation brings with it new ways of living and interpreting reality.
26. There is no final; The revolutions are infinite. (Yevgeny Zamyatin)
Another opinion in line with those who see the revolutionary as a fact that is part of the essence of history.
27. You can’t buy the revolution. You can’t make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It’s either in your spirit or it’s nowhere. (Ursula K. Le Guin)
About the involvement necessary to promote revolutionary processes.
28. Until victory always. (Ernesto Guevara)
One of the best-known revolutionary cries, although it is based on an error: originally, it said “Until victory. Always, homeland or death.” Fidel Castro read it changing the punctuation.
29. We have no right to think that freedom can be won without fighting. (Che Guevera)
The ideological errors They can harm people.
30. We have it in our power to start the world again. (Thomas Paine)
About the ultimate objective of the revolutionaries.
31. There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades occur. (Vladimir Ilyich Lenin)
An apparent paradox.
32. Every revolution was first a thought in the mind of a man. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
This is an idealistic vision of the revolution.
33. The seed of revolution is repression. (Woodrow Wilson)
Contrary to what one might expect, oppression fuels disobedience.
34. You cannot make a revolution with kid gloves. (Joseph Stalin)
One of Stalin’s most remembered phrases.
35. Art is plagiarism or revolution. (Paul Gauguin)
A very radical dichotomy.
36. The revolution has always been in the hands of young people. The young always inherits the revolution. (Huey Newton)
A fundamental distinction by age strata, although very debatable.
37. It is not the insurrection of ignorance that is dangerous, but the revolt of intelligence. (James Russell Lowell)
The intellectual spheres, sometimes, They can act as a simple defense of the status quo and what has always been done.
38. Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy. (Franz Kafka)
A pessimistic metaphor about revolutions.
39. While they fight separately, they are defeated together. (Tacit)
About the need for collective organization.
40. A revolution is born as a social entity within the oppressive society. (Paulo Freire)
The revolution seen as a gestation process.
41. Ask for a job. If they don’t give you work, ask for bread. If they don’t give you work or bread, take the bread. (Emma Goldman.)
Goldman questions the idea that the present social organization has to be defended for the simple fact of being so.
42. Give me time and I will give you a revolution. (Alexander McQueen)
Another of the aphorisms that assimilate revolutions to the advancement of history.
43. Revolutions begin with the word and end with the sword. (Jean Paul Marat)
A sequential view of revolutionary changes.
44. If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution. (Emma Goldman)
A personal reflection that has become a propaganda slogan very common especially in feminist fields
45. Political power is simply organized power of one class to oppress another. (Karl Marx)
Marx had a conception of social organization as different forms that class struggle takes.
46. Revolution means democracy in today’s world, not the enslavement of people to the corrupt and degrading horrors of totalitarianism. (Ronald Reagan)
Reagan attempted to portray revolutionary processes outside the United States as processes of social corruption that had to be stopped.
47. It is impossible to predict the timing and progress of the revolution. It is ruled by its own mysterious wars. (Vladimir Lenin)
Each revolution is unique.
48. The revolution is a dictatorship of the exploited against the exploiters. (Fidel Castro)
Castro questioned whether all dictatorships were equal.
49. You can imprison a revolutionary, but you cannot imprison the revolution. (Huey Newton)
It is not possible to isolate political change by isolating people.
50. The revolution is the festival of the oppressed. (Germaine Greer)
A place where those who have been subjugated they have the opportunity to free themselves
51. The revolution that takes place in your head, no one will see. (Gil Scott Heron)
If ideas are not expressed, there is no point in rebelling.
52. Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. (Thomas Jefferson)
A paradox based on religious thought.
53. The worst enemy of the revolution is the bourgeois that many revolutionaries carry within. (Mao Tse Tung)
Mao talks about the contradictions that live within revolutionaries.
54. We fight against misery but at the same time we fight against alienation. (Che Guevara)
A double fight.
55. A revolution is impossible without a revolutionary situation; Furthermore, not every revolutionary situation guides revolution. (Vladimir Lenin)
Before the revolution, certain situations need to occur.
56. Philosophers have limited themselves to interpreting the world in different ways; what it is about is transforming it. (Karl Marx)
Philosophy seen as a tool of change.
57. Without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement. (Vladimir Ilyich Lenin)
Actions need a coherent way of looking at the problem and proposing other options
58. You can’t make a revolution to establish democracy. You must have a democracy to have a revolution. (G.K. Chesterton)
According to this view, revolution emerges from a democratic process.
59. Revelation can be more dangerous than revolution. (Vladimir Nabokov)
There are changes in conception that precipitate change in themselves.
60. The French Revolution taught us the rights of man. (Thomas Sankara)
About a qualitative change in history.
61. Revolutions occur in dead ends. (Bertolt Brecht)
When there are no more options, you break the system.
62. A reform is a correction of abuses, a revolution is a transfer of power. (Edward G. Bulwer Lytton)
About the qualitative change that comes with the revolution.
63. The truth is always revolutionary. (Vladimir Lenin)
A well-remembered aphorism.
64. Those who are inclined to compromise can never make a revolution. (Kemal Ataturk)
This is one of the phrases about the revolution that talk about blind obedience.
65. He who kneels before the accomplished fact is incapable of facing the future. (Trotsky)
Trotsky saw conformism with the present reality as a trap that leads us to not see the new arrive.
66. Those who are not able to defend old positions will never be able to conquer new ones. (Trotsky)
Progress seen as an accumulation of goals.
67. We cannot have a revolution that does not involve and liberate women. (John Lennon)
On the need to cover different sources of inequality.
68. There cannot be a total revolution but rather a permanent revolution. Like love, it is the fundamental joy of life. (Max Ernst)
Every time you will find new ways to continue progressing.
69. Revolutions are not made by trifles, but they are born by trifles. (Aristotle)
A spark can engender transformation.
70. To impute the revolution to men is to impute the tide to the waves. (Victor Hugo)
This phrase of revolution speaks of this change as something systemic linked not to the individual but to the collectives.
71. The workers have nothing to lose except their chains. (Karl Marx)
One of the most famous phrases of this famous German thinker.
72. The old world is dying. The new one takes a while to appear. And in that chiaroscuro monsters emerge (Antonio Gramsci)
The Italian thinker Antonio Gramsci experienced firsthand a truly dark time in the history of his country.
73. He who serves a revolution works the sea. (Simon Bolivar)
A very beautiful image about the achievements of the revolution.
74. For a world where we are socially equal, humanly different and totally free. (Rosa Luxembourg)
Every revolution should aspire to reach that horizon.
75. They wanted to bury us, but they didn’t know that we were seeds.
A slogan full of strength and vitality, widely used in social protests of all kinds.
77. They may cut the flowers, but they will not stop the spring. (Pablo Neruda)
One of the most beautiful verses of this Chilean poet.
78. He who does not move does not feel the chains. (Rosa Luxembourg)
One of the most famous phrases of this German revolutionary leader of Polish origin.
79. We have to be creative continually. You have to look for the theory; There is no revolution without revolutionary theory. (Hugo Chavez)
Constant renewal is where we can find final success.
80. Under the cobblestones, there is a beach!
One of the most important slogans of the revolutionary movement known as “French May” that emerged in 1968.
81. Pessimism of intelligence, optimism of will. (Antonio Gramsci)
Gramsci spent much of his life serving his country’s revolutionary cause.
82. The revolution is the cancer of corruption, it has the unquestionable power to put an end to its organization full of tyrants.
One of the essential objectives of the revolution is to change and renew the political situation of a country.
83. We must not forget, however, that history is not made without greatness of spirit, without high morality, without noble gestures. (Rosa Luxembourg)
All the great revolutions in history have been achieved based on these precepts.
84. No one lacks strength; What many people lack is will. (Victor Hugo)
This famous playwright lived through a very turbulent time in his country, with permanent revolutions for several decades.
85. True leaders must be willing to sacrifice everything for the freedom of their people. (Nelson Mandela)
If anyone knows what it is to sacrifice for freedom, it is Nelson Mandela, who was imprisoned for 27 years.
86. We are not afraid of ruins, because we carry a new world in our hearts. (Buenaventura Durruti)
One of the most famous phrases of this Leonese anarchist revolutionary.
87. Educate yourselves, because we need all our intelligence. Get moving, because we need enthusiasm. Get organized, because we need all our strength. (Antonio Gramsci)
One of the most moving quotes from this great Italian thinker.
88. Revolution is when people come together to defeat a lie; Religion is when it unites to defeat the truth. (Alfredo de Hoces)
A phrase that can be truly provocative for some.
89. The only fight that is lost is the one that is abandoned.
A phrase full of positivity, motivation and optimism.
90. The passage from utopia to science and from science to action. The founding of a ruling class is equivalent to the creation of a conception of the world. (Antonio Gramsci)
Some revolutionary theorists are capable of creating new realities better than those that already exist.
91. Talking and doing are different things, rather antagonistic. (Karl Marx)
Every revolution is based on direct action, beyond theory.
