James Baldwin Quotes

There's one hole in every revolution, large or small. And it's one word long— PEOPLE. No matter how big the idea they all stand under, people are small and weak and cheap and frightened. It's people that kill every revolution.

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.

Rebellions which overthrow the governments of Mexico cannot be called revolutions. A revolution is a radical change, and if there is anything that has never been changed in Mexico it is the method of putting new public functionaries into office by rebellion.

We have enough votes to run the country. And when the people say, We've had enough, we are going to take over.

Successful revolutions are those which end up by erasing all traces of themselves.

The social revolution is seriously compromised if it comes through a political revolution.

With people's revolutionary rage, the king will be ousted and a democratic state, Islamic Republic, will be established.

The revolution has overthrown the monarchy, true! But perhaps this means that the revolution simply has driven the skin disease inside the organism.

There is no more democratic government than a revolutionary government.

We need a regime change in this country.... If we launch a pre-emptive strike on Iraq we lose all moral authority.

The world has witnessed the rise and fall of monarchy, the rise and fall of dictatorship, the rise and fall of feudalism, the rise and fall of communism, and the rise of democracy; and now we are witnessing the fall of democracy... the theme of the evolution of life continues, sweeping away with it all that does not blossom into perfection.

It is not our place to decide who should lead the Iraqi people. If Saddam [Hussein] leaves or has to be forced out of power and a new regime brought in, a new leadership brought in, I am confident it will be some combination of people inside the country and outside the country.

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

Revolutions only effect a radical improvement when the masses are alert and know how to chuck out their leaders as soon as the latter have done their job.

More and more, revolution has found itself delivered into the hands of its bureaucrats and doctrinaires on the one hand, and to the enfeebled and bewildered masses on the other.

Given the chance to throw off a brutal dictator like Saddam Hussein, people will rejoice.

The Arab spring reminds me a bit of the decolonisation process where one country gets independence and everybody else wants it. How about us, when do we get it, when do we make our move? And you have a situation where someone has been in power for decades, where the integrity of elections, democracy and security have really not been debated or discussed and most people suspect that elections are rigged and that the democratic rotation that elections are supposed to ensure doesn't really happen. And when this goes on for a while you are sitting on a powder keg.

If democracy succeeds in Egypt, other countries will follow. Should the democratic experiment in Egypt be hijacked by the military or anti-democratic Islamist groups, the revolution will fail elsewhere.

Those who regarded the revolution, during Imam Khomeini's time, as a deviation, are now [wielding] the tools of terror and oppression

It's important to begin to even consider whether countries can become something that looks very different because people tend to take their countries for granted.

The Middle East has gone through periods of turmoil before. In the 1950s and 1960s, there were revolutions. When monarchies were collapsing in a number of countries, we had radicals and we had Nasserism. Today it's a little bit more complicated.

The Orange Revolution in Ukraine is a good example of how people, who are robbed of their right to vote, can protest and put an end to dictatorship.

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

I think people in America have had enough, and Donald Trump's the change agent.