Naguib Mahfouz Quotes

The country is called to the practice of new customs. The walls and surfaces must be cleaned. But minds too must be cleansed, for that is where the error was born.

Revolution cleanses men, improving them as the experimental farmer corrects the defects of his plants.

Give me time and I'll give you a revolution.

Revolution is as unpredictable as an earthquake and as beautiful as spring. Its coming is always a surprise, but its nature should not be.

You can either have revolution or you can have revival.

Central to our identity as Catholics is that we are called to be leaven for transforming the world, agents for bringing about a kingdom of love and justice.

…aspiration for justice often finds itself the captive of ideologies which hide or pervert its meaning …

Forming the new society within the shell of the old.

Reform starts here.

You can't build a new society by violating the rights of others.

I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction.

The Socialist movement is the abolitionist movement of the 20th century.

A new society cannot be created by reproducing the repugnant past, however refined or enticingly repackaged.

We would be in trouble as a society if there wasn't a constant pressure to make reforms and to be just.

We are sons of the Mexican Revolution, a revolution of the poor seeking, bread and justice. Our revolution will not be armed, but we want the existing social order to dissolve, we want a new social order.

Justice has its anger, my lord Bishop, and the wrath of justice is an element of progress. Whatever else may be said of it, the French Revolution was the greatest step forward by mankind since the coming of Christ. It was unfinished, I agree, but still it was sublime. It released the untapped springs of society; it softened hearts, appeased, tranquilized, enlightened, and set flowing through the world the tides of civilization. It was good. The French Revolution was the anointing of humanity.

Youth should be radical. Youth should demand change in the world. Youth should not accept the old order if the world is to move on. But the old orders should not be moved easily - certainly not at the mere whim or behest of youth. There must be clash and if youth hasn't enough force or fervor to produce the clash the world grows stale and stagnant and sour in decay.

'Revolution' does not necessarily involve sanguinary strife nor is there any place in it for individual vendetta. It is not the cult of the bomb and the pistol. By 'Revolution' we mean that the present order of things, which is based on manifest injustice, must change.

Mother Dear, one day I'm going to turn this world upside down." --From My Brother Martin, by Christine King Farris

Vengeance is not the point: change is.

We must see the great distinction between a reform movement and a revolutionary movement. We are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society . . . . What America must be told today is that she must be born again. The whole structure of American life must be changed.

You can be active with the activists or sleep in with the sleepers while you're waiting for the Great Leap Forwards.

What matters is not to know the world but to change it.

This is Not Another Revolution. This is a Civil Rights Movement

Revolution is our obligation: our hope of evolution.