Popular Protest Quotes

Domestically, a lot of people think Xi Jinping is becoming Mao Zedong. By giving Hong Kong democracy, people would look at them as enlightened leaders.

You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.

A revolution that cannot defend itself in an age of sedition, against various political and military coup attempts and other such acts, is not alive. This revolution is alive for it defends itself and indeed prevails and wins.

Congress becomes the public voice of opposition.

Washington was taken by surprise by the Egyptian revolution because policy experts focused too much on Mubarak and his government, and too little on the 'voice of the people.'

I think we have to pay attention to the Arab masses not just in the Gulf States, but also in the hinterlands.

The Arab spring was not as radical as the French or Iranian revolutions. It did not pull out the deeply entrenched roots of the state. Instead, it was satisfied to replace the top of the pyramid with newly elected, but inexperienced, leaders.

One of the most interesting reactions to come out of 1968 was in the first publication of the Trilateral Commission, which believed there was a 'crisis of democracy' from too much participation of the masses.

The Arab Spring is a powerful and compelling response not only to an age of tyranny but also to the remnant chains of imperial influence.

The Arab Spring showed that people are not going to wait for an American president to make good on his big talk about democracy and human rights; they are going to fight for those rights themselves and overthrow pro-American dictators who stand in their way.

The danger of leaving overwhelming wealth and power in the grasp of a small minority is a lesson that leaders such as ousted Tunisian president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and deposed Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak have learned a little too late, as the demonstrations across the Arab world indicate.

The National Revolution has begun.

I think that the drama of people rising up demanding their own freedom is one that resonates very deeply with America. I think that President Barack Obama has tried and would like to find a way to relate to the Arab Spring, but I think he also wants to be, rightly, very careful that we don't take it over. It is very important that they own this. He is trying to influence it this way but without, "We're so never going to go to the extreme of Iraq and putting boots on the ground again."

We are banned in the Muslim world because we want to discard the rulers in the Muslim world to the dustbin of history.

The revolutions of the Arab Spring happened because people realized they were the power.

And so I have studied, I have to tell you, revolutions and uprisings for a long time. They are all slightly different, but what they all look for is some kind of a mechanism to go from an authoritarian system to an open, democratic system.

The so-called Arab Spring has proved that the fall of a Mubarak-like presidency does not mean the immediate rise of democracy. In spite of this, I am confident that Egypt will not return to an authoritarian governing system again, and that, with some time, it will achieve its democratic goals.

In crises, the old is dying and the new has not been born. Hence, the revolts we are witnessing in Egypt and Tunisia, which may yet extend to other countries in the region, are full of uncertainties.

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.