Grace Lee Boggs Quotes

General rebellions and revolts of a whole people never were encouraged now or at any time. They are always provoked.

‎What is to prevent, say, an uprising?

I think that rebellions arise out of anger, and they're very short-lived.

Revolts, republics, revolutions, most no graver than a schoolboy’s barring out.

An armed uprising is inevitable and the time for it fully ripe.

Americans have a tendency to exalt the concept of a popular uprising.

I think that rebellions arise out of anger, and they're very short-lived. And a revolution has some sense of a long time frame, millions of years that we've been evolving on this planet.

If you call it a riot, it sounds like it was just a bunch of crazy people who went out and did bad things for no reason. I maintain it was somewhat understandable, if not acceptable. So I call it a rebellion.

Insurrection: Insurrection as soon as circumstances allow: insurrection, strenuous, ubiquitous: the insurrection of the masses: the holy war of the oppressed: the republic to make republicans: the people in action to initiate progress. Let the insurrection announce with its awful voice the decrees of God: let it clear and level the ground on which its own immortal structure shall be raised. Let it, like the Nile, flood all the country that it is destined to make fertile.

Three words remain that can yet stir the blood of man: the word 'rebellion'; the word 'revolt'; the word 'revolution'.

There is no rule without revolts and conspiracies, even as there is no property without work and worry.

A rebellion is not a revolution. It may ultimately lead to that end.

May we not look for Discontent, Mistrust, Disaffection to Government and frequent Insurrections?

Revolutions are not improvised. They are not made at will by individuals, and not even by the most powerful associations. They come about through force of circumstances, and are independent of any deliberate will or conspiracy.

Mass action culminates in armed insurrection and civil war.

Insurrections made by a few who attempt to raise the people in order to achieve a state of affairs that these very people do not understand, must fear defeat, their inevitable end.

Usually the impetus of a revolution is a relatively small group with positive goals but also a larger collection of people with resentments.

We Communists are like seeds and the people are like the soil. Wherever we go, we must unite with the people, take root and blossom among them.

Revolt and revolution both wind up at the same crossroads: the police, or folly.

Rebellion per se is not a virtue. If it were, we would have some heroes on very low levels.

A little rebellion is a good thing.

The word 'revolution' is a word for which you kill, for which you die, for which you send the labouring masses to their deaths; but which does not contain any content.

I am interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos, especially activity that seems to have no meaning.

The spirit of revolution, the spirit of insurrection, is a spirit radically opposed to liberty

Fire is catching! And if we burn, you burn with us!