Charles Mingus Quotes

Rebels seldom make good revolutionaries, because organized action, even union with other people, is not possible for them.

They say I'm a revolutionary, but they're all wrong.

We might not be back. I might be in jail. I might be anywhere. But when I leave, you'll remember I said, with the last words on my lips, that I am a revolutionary. And you're going to have to keep on saying that. You're going to have to say that I am a proletariat; I am the people.

Being naked approaches being revolutionary; going barefoot is mere populism.

I hope I don't have to buck the system. But if it requires bucking, I will do it.

I am always on the side of the revolutionists, because there never was a revolution unless there were some oppressive and intolerable conditions against which to revolute.

One should never put on one's best trousers to go out to fight for freedom.

A revolutionary should neither look nor act like one to get ahead in Canada.

Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.

That's what Tupac and I got from my dad - the rebellion and the need to fight back and be recognized for being different.

There's always stuff to rebel against.

I don't like the word 'feminist.' I don't like the word 'ambitious.' I do like the word 'anti-establishment.'

Punk is the voice that shouts the loudest from the silence of inertia.

If you want to challenge the system, don't go to bed with it.

There were moments where people took the to streets and small rebellions, but ultimately it's a change in consciousness - so how do you capture that and bring the piece to light?

Write on my gravestone: 'Infidel, Traitor.', infidel to every church that compromises with wrong; traitor to every government that oppresses the people.

Protest is when I say I don't like this. Resistance is when I put an end to what I don't like. Protest is when I say I refuse to go along with this anymore. Resistance is when I make sure everybody else stops going along too.

If You Want To Rebel Against Society, Don’t Dull The Blade

Keep this straight in your head: we are not fighting an alien invasion - we're leading a revolution. And today the battle begins.

It is right to rebel against reactionaries.

To those who had ordered them to death, one of them said: “We die because the people are asleep and you will die because the people will awaken.”

Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.

Start your own revolution, cut out the middleman In a perfect world we'd all sing in tune But this is reality so give me some room So join the struggle while you may The Revolution is just a t-shirt away

If you can't raise consciousness, at least raise hell.

Keep your coins, I want change.