Billy Bragg Quotes

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

Disobey the rules; ask for more; leave your wretchedness behind; organize with your brothers and sisters; never accept the hand of fate.

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

I think, you're not blagging me on this ridiculous journey, with this bit of paper. I think if you want to change things, it's not with an X on a piece of paper, it's with an X on someone's forehead.

Changes and progress very rarely are gifts from above. They come out of struggles from below.

Power is never so overwhelming that there's no room for resistance.

Security isn't what I hunger for. I hunger for change. I hunger for connection.

An oppressed people will always rise.

It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.

My fellow revolutionaries, liberation is a noble cause. We must fight to obtain it.

In any social revolution the one thing that keeps it alive is hope.

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will.

Neither God, nor angels, or just men, command you to suffer for a single moment. Therefore it is your solemn and imperative duty to use every means, both moral, intellectual, and physical, that promise success .... Brethren, arise, arise! Strike for your lives and liberties.... Let your motto be resistance, resistance, resistance!

Only force would produce social change.

Dare! — this word contains all the politics of our revolution.

Movements don't die, because struggle doesn't die.

If things aren't working for us, it is our duty to rise up.

Change comes when people are willing to commit acts of peaceful civil disobedience.

It's about people rising up in Ferguson and in Egypt and in Occupy Wall Street and in every place where a community has had enough and decides to make change happen. It's not about praising one charismatic leader but celebrating thousands of them... 'Black Messiah' is not one man. It's a feeling that, collectively, we are all that leader.

Sit up, join up, get on line, get in touch, find out who's raising hell and join them. No use waiting on a bunch of wussy politicians.

You can tell people of the need to struggle, but when the powerless start to see that they really can make a difference, nothing can quench the fire.

I think [rock'n'roll] essence is what made it good and has a lot in common with what originally made monotheism good - it's against everything that is fixed, all the social structures that you can't go past.

Gandhi was only minding his own business when he took a walk to get some salt and ended up overthrowing the British Empire. You can't set out to overthrow an empire, but if you have to get some salt then get some salt. If you have to write some independent songs that are honest, just write them. If you have to do a day job stacking shelves, so be it.

Keep your coins, I want change.

Every great movement in the world starts with a tiny group of people who simply refuse to accept a situation.