Camille Pissarro Quotes

Reform is born of need, not pity. No vital movement of the people has worked down, for good or evil; fermented, instead, it carried up the heaving, cloggy mass.

Social conditions that spur large numbers of people into action are ignored in favor of a Hollywood version of history focusing on one conquering hero. Since a movement for social change is embodied in its leader, death of the leader means death of the movement.

The revolution has always been in the hands of the young. The young always inherit the revolution.

At the time I was arrested I had no idea it would turn into this. It was just a day like any other day. The only thing that made it significant was that the masses of the people joined in.

Britain is rich in radicalism, and anyone who says that our society has drifted into fatalism and apathy should get out more.

There's nothing automatic about political change, about liberation.

Life provides material for its agitation which makes its general views comprehensible to the masses.

Organizations don’t make revolutions. People do.

Every reform was once a private opinion, and when it shall be a private opinion again it will solve the problem of the age.

To change history you have to have very simple goals.

I believe that social change has almost reached critical mass. So many people have undergone personal transformation that their effect on society is having a geometric - not arithmetic - impact. This coalescence of energies brings about meeting, networking, and a sophistication in communications that is unprecedented in history.

The Adequate Protest demands far more than protests. It calls for Great and Daring Leaps of Integrity and Courage to See.

Campaigns end, revolutions endure.

I will never retire from politics, the revolution, or the ideas I have.

I think there's a weapon of cynicism to say, 'Protest doesn't work. Organizing doesn't work. Y'all are a bunch of hippies. You know, it doesn't do anything,' because, frankly, it's said out of fear, because it is a potent force for political change.

My presence is to instigate and incite the people for any change they want, and for not having a change that they don't wish to do.

I urge you to read the Occupy Manifesto, written by the New York City General Assembly. It is unavoidably clear. This is not directionless action. If it were, the media would have moved on.

When cultural movements happen, it's so beyond your control.

I was in Toronto when the big Women's March was going on, and I thought, 'Well, I've never been to a protest, and I can't sit this one out, and they're having a gathering here in Toronto, so I may as well go,' and gosh, I didn't expect 60,000 or 65,000 people to be there - it was huge! It was something that I didn't feel I could sit out at all.

Cultural change always precedes political change.

In the late 1960s, the masses were supposed to be passive, not entering into the public arena and having their voices heard.

My movement is 'Rose Army.'

Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and chance the future.

Civil disobedience's main goal typically is to try to arouse and inspire others to join and do something. Well, sometimes that is a good tactic, sometimes not.

One of the problems of organizing in the North, in the rich countries, is that people tend to think - even the activists - that instant gratification is required. You constantly hear: 'Look I went to a demonstration, and we didn't stop the war so what's the use of doing it again?'