Themes

"A time will come when the people will understand their power and the pigs' machinery will be unable to accommodate their demands. That is when the people, black people and poor white people and oppressed people all over America will rise up like mighty tide and clean this beachfront of capitalism and racism, and make the revolution."

"REVOLUTION, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment. Specifically, in American history, the substitution of the rule of an Administration for that of a Ministry, whereby the welfare and happiness of the people were out advanced a full half-inch. Revolutions are usually accompanied by a considerable effusion of blood, but are accounted worth it -- this appraisement being made by beneficiaries whose blood had not the mischance to be shed. The French revolution is of incalculable value to the Socialist of to-day; when he pulls the string actuating its bones its gestures are inexpressibly terrifying to gory tyrants suspected of fomenting law and order."

"We are all concerned with the revolutionary problem of how and what to produce, but nobody points out that producing is a revolutionary problem. If production is at the root of capitalist exploitation, to change the mode of production would merely change the mode of exploitation."

"By abolishing the ethic of production you enter revolutionary reality directly."

"I realized that the only purpose to revolution is to be able to love who you want, how you want, when you want and where you want."

"A revolution is an idea which has found its bayonets."

"Morally, it is wrong to suppose the source of evil is outside oneself, that one is a vessel of holiness running over with virtue. Such a disposition is the best soil for a hateful and cruel fanaticism. It is as wrong to impute every wickedness to Jews, Freemansons, "intellectuals," as it is to blame all crimes on the bourgeoisie, the nobility, and the powers that were. No; the root of evil is in me as well, and I must take my share of the responsibility and the blame. That was true before the revolution and it is true still."

"There are seasons, in human affairs, of inward and outward revolution, when new depths seem to be broken up in the soul, when new wants are unfolded in multitudes, and a new and undefined good is thirsted for. There are periods when...to dare, is the highest wisdom."

"Revolutions hew the past to pieces and cast it into a cauldron, but what has emerged is the old Aeson with a new visage."

"Whatever plans we may make, we shall find quite useless when the time for action comes. Revolutions are always full of surprises, and whoever thinks he can play chess with a revolution will soon find how terrible is the grasp of God and how insignificant the human reason before the whirlwind of His breath. That man only is likely to dominate the chances of a Revolution, who makes no plans but preserves his heart pure for the will of God to declare itself. The great rule of life is to have no schemes but one unalterable purpose. If the will is fixed on the purpose it sets itself to accomplish, then circumstances will suggest the right course; but the schemer finds himself always tripped up by the unexpected."

"Revolution requires extensive and widespread destruction, a fecund and renovating destruction, since in this way and only this way are new worlds born"

"Revolutionaries do not make revolutions! The revolutionaries are those who know when power is lying in the street and when they can pick it up. Armed uprising by itself has never yet led to revolution."

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in the minds of men."

"Revolution is learning how to bring a large variety of personalities together into a powerful harmony. This harmony must lay down some general direction and get work done. It’s never easy. It’s struggle. It takes a lot of skill."

"The peoples' revolution ... will arrange its revolutionary organisation from the bottom up and from the periphery to the centre, in keeping with the principle of liberty."

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

"The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution."

"It is time to apply to the mystique of revolution the same critical intelligence that has been applied to the mystique of war."

"Everything is being televised so you won't be able to tell where the Revolution is. "Who's revolting? Well, I don't know, what's on the other channel?""

"Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind; and when the same thought occurs to another man, it is the key to that era."

"Today, when the country is stifling in the clutches of economic disruption and war, and the vultures of counter-revolution are plotting its doom, the revolution must find the strength and the means to save it from crumbling and disintegrating."

"And better had they ne'er been born, Who read to doubt, or read to scorn."

"Read Homer once, and you can read no more, For all books else appear so mean, so poor, Verse will seem prose; but still persist to read, And Homer will be all the books you need."

"He that runs may read."

"He that I am reading seems always to have the most force."

"It may be well to wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer."

"I love to lose myself in other men's minds. When I am not walking, I am reading; I cannot sit and think. Books think for me."

"Learn to read slow; all other graces Will follow in their proper places."

"Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it."

"The foolish read to escape reality; the wise surrender to it."

"Books have always a secret influence on the understanding; we cannot at pleasure obliterate ideas: he that reads books of science, though without any desire fixed of improvement, will grow more knowing; he that entertains himself with moral or religious treatises, will imperceptibly advance in goodness; the ideas which are often offered to the mind, will at last find a lucky moment when it is disposed to receive them."

"The first time I read an excellent book, it is to me just as if I had gained a new friend. When I read over a book I have perused before, it resembles the meeting with an old one."

"The sagacious reader who is capable of reading between these lines what does not stand written in them, but is nevertheless implied, will be able to form some conception."

"Zwar sind sie an das Beste nicht gewöhnt, Allein sie haben schrecklich viel gelesen."

"A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good."

"In a polite age almost every person becomes a reader, and receives more instruction from the Press than the Pulpit."

"But truths on which depends our main concern, That 'tis our shame and misery not to learn, Shine by the side of every path we tread With such a lustre he that runs may read."

"The delight of opening a new pursuit, or a new course of reading, imparts the vivacity and novelty of youth even to old age."

"I like to be beholden to the great metropolitan English speech, the sea which receives tributaries from every region under heaven. I should as soon think of swimming across the Charles river when I wish to go to Boston, as of reading all my books in originals, when I have them rendered for me in my mother tongue."

"What is twice read is commonly better remembered than what is transcribed."

"My early and invincible love of reading, * * * I would not exchange for the treasures of India."

"If one's mind correctly gauges the import of these words, then, in the blink of an eye, one's qualities of wisdom and severance will become so great as to defy measurement and one's spiritual understanding will become unfathomably deep.If, however, one disingenuously seizes on passages out of context or, due to personal sentiments, distorts the instructions of the text, then the months and years will be needlessly drawn out while actual realization will have no basis for development. One's circumstance would then be like the pauper who spends his time calculating the wealth of other men. What possible benefit could this have for oneself?"

"Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body. As by the one, health is preserved, strengthened, and invigorated: by the other, virtue (which is the health of the mind) is kept alive, cherished, and confirmed."

"Reading maketh a full man."

"This experiment addressed the question of whether reading comprehension and speed could be predicted by eye fixations. From a sample of university students who completed tests of reading comprehension and vocabulary, we selected a group of highly skilled readers and a group of less skilled readers. These two groups then read sentences as their eye movements were monitored, with fixation locations and durations recorded. A discriminant function analysis showed that fixation duration was a successful predictor of reading comprehension, but that the number of fixations, regressive fixations, reading speed, and vocabulary were not reliable predictors. A multiple regression analysis revealed that reading speed was predicted by the number of fixations, the average fixation duration, and the duration of the final fixation upon the sentence, but there was no relationship with reading ability. Highly skilled readers are those who can extract information efficiently, but are not necessarily those who have fast overall reading rates."

"I feel free and strong. If I were not a reader of books I could not feel this way. Whatever may happen to me, thank God that I can read, that I have truly touched the minds of other men."

"Studious let me sit, And hold high converse with the mighty Dead."

"Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest."

"Nothing is more commonplace than the reading experience, and yet nothing is more unknown. Reading is such a matter of course that at first glance it seems there is nothing to say about it."

"Reading is the subtle and thorough sharing of the ideas and feelings by underhanded means. It is a gross invasion of Privacy."