Ellen Glasgow Quotes

I think that revolution means change. And if somebody feels like there's nothing wrong, everything's great even when it ain't, why would they ask for a revolution? Just stick the tubes into me and just pump away.

Methods of thought which claim to give the lead to our world in the name of revolution have become, in reality, ideologies of consent and not of rebellion.

If revolution insists upon overturning established order, let other peoples make the tragic experiment. There is no place for it in America.

We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going, and then go with the drove.

It’s the well-behaved children that make the most formidable revolutionaries. They don’t say a word, they don’t hide under the table, they eat only one piece of chocolate at a time. But later on, they make society pay dearly.

The Arab world is erupting, which is extraordinary, and to see it happen is like watching rings spreading on a pool - it goes out; it varies so much. The spontaneity is wonderful, but very often, if it's not well organized, it breaks up, and it peters out.

If it was up to me, there wouldn't be no such thing as the establishment.

The mainstream is always under attack.

The absolute key issue is: how do you create enough political pressure? It's up to us to create that political will and there are tried and tested techniques for doing that. So we're talking about the need for civil disobedience that escalates into a rebellion and uprising.

The status quo is presented as something to aspire to, whereas for us, the status quo was something we wanted to shatter in order to create the space for people to choose for themselves.

When there's a revolution in Egypt, you can't really get depressed about not knowing what happens after you die. When there are millions out on the streets, that's not the time to start panicking about contracting swine flu.

We need punk now; we need it more than ever. We need rebellion by youth.

The nonconformist and the rebel say all manner of unanswerable things against the existing republic, but discover to our sense no plan of house or state of their own.

We laugh at sheep because sheep just follow the one in front. We humans have out-sheeped the sheep, because at least the sheep need a sheep dog to keep them in line. Humans keep each other in line. And they do it by ridiculing or condemning anyone who commits the crime, and that’s what it’s become, of being different.

Men are sheep. Where one goes, the rest will soon follow. -Lady Whistledown

Have you ever thought that radical ideas threaten institutions, then become institutions, and in turn reject radical ideas which threaten institutions?

Make yourself sheep and the wolves will eat you.

O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone; and you have no longer an aristocratical, no longer a democratical spirit. Did you ever read of any revolution in a nation, brought about by the punishment of those in power, inflicted by those who had no power at all?

We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going, and then go with the drove. We have two opinions: one private, which we are afraid to express; and another one - the one we use - which we force ourselves to wear to please Mrs. Grundy, until habit makes us comfortable in it, and the custom of defending it presently makes us love it, adore it, and forget how pitifully we came by it. Look at it in politics.

The despair is there; now it's up to us to go in and rub raw the sores of discontent, galvanize them for radical social change.

The powerful don't make revolutions

As the haves and have-nots split further and further apart, destabilization ultimately leads to revolution, not evolution. If we're playing the evolution vs. revolution game, we are closer to revolution than we are to evolution in my concept.

Revolutions are never peaceful.

REVOLUTION, n. A bursting of the boilers which usually takes place when the safety valve of public discussion is closed.

We have conferred a mystic popularity upon officials whose only virtue is their timidity; while our scorn of rebels and reformers is so great that we have ceased to persecute them. The capitals and governments of the world are in the hands of caution; and change comes over them only in the night, unseen.