John le Carre Quotes

All the big revolutions, whether it's the Industrial Revolution, the Arab Spring, those changes happened by economic and social shifts brought about by the people's voices, and those things weren't voted for. Most of our changes today are brought about through technology, not by voting.

We started filming in 1993 which was only four years after the fall of communism. The difference in Budapest over the last five years has been remarkable.

Dictators will be replaced, not by civil war and terrorism, but by organized nonviolent movements that will insure that freedom, human rights, and dignity will be honored under all flags.

There is no example in history of a revolutionary movement involving such gigantic masses being so bloodless.

I don't accept armed struggle. Maybe it was the way in the '50s and '60s, but we want a democratic revolution.

War will bring the revolution; revolution will stop the war.

If things do not change, there will be nothing left to change. Either power must pass to the people or everything will perish.

A revolution is sometimes necessary, but if revolutions become habitual the country in which they take place is going down-hill

I myself am a very, very peaceful person. Throughout our history, from our own American revolution to the resistance against apartheid in South Africa, to labor strikes in the US, people have resorted to violence to achieve a more progressive society, from time to time.

To me, the most amazing the most amazing transformation in my lifetime is not the revolution of the Sixties but the counter revolution of the Seventies, where they managed to put the cuckoo clock back together again

The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.

Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King are great examples of fantastic nonviolents who died violently. I can never work that out. We're pacifists, but I'm not sure what it means when you're such a pacifist that you get shot. I can never understand that.

Let us remember that revolutions do not always establish freedom.

Ideas are very important to the shaping of society. In fact, they are more powerful than bombings or armies or guns. And this is because ideas are capable of spreading without limit. They are behind all the choices we make. They can transform the world in a way that governments and armies cannot. Fighting for liberty with ideas makes more sense to me than fighting with guns or politics or political power. With ideas, we can make real change that lasts.

It's soul force that removed the English from India. It's soul force that brought down the Berlin Wall. It's soul force that gave life to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s struggle for civil rights.

Let us not forget that revolutions are accomplished through people, although they be nameless. Materialism does not ignore the feeling, thinking, and acting man, but explains him.

Non-violence is very weak in the theoretical sense; it cannot defend itself. But it is most powerful in the action situation where people are using non-violence because they want desperately to bring about some change. Non-violence in action is a very potent force and it can't be stopped. The people who are struggling have the complete say-so. No man-made law, no human ruler, no army can destroy this. There is no way it can be destroyed... And so, if we have the capacity to endure, if we have the patience, things will change.

The law of violence is not a law, but a simple fact which can only be a law when it does not meet with protest and opposition. It is like the cold, darkness and weight, which people had to put up with until recently when warmth, illumination and leverage were discovered.

A transition is taking place in Egypt. In my judgement, there is no going back. I think the old expression, "They're not going to put the toothpaste back in the tube on this one.

It is my conviction that there is no way to peace - peace is the way.

Just as the world cannot live on wars, so people cannot on revolutions

The way I'm going now is to focus on peace, to create peace. As Sister Corita said, "I don't go to anti-war rallies. I go to peace rallies."

It's good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years. I hope that's not where we're going. But, you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies.

Nonviolence in politics is a new weapon in the process of evolution; its vast possibilities are yet unexplored.

Western Civilization has been in a state of decline since the Edwardian age, say 1910. That was the height of Greco-Roman European civilization. Then there was the First World War. That was the beginning of the end. That civilization has been in a decline ever since. But from the American triumphalist point of view our wonderful electronic revolution is really the forefront of an ongoing wonderful civilization.