Quotes
Quotes about Evolution
It's a sad and stupid thing to have to proclaim yourself a revolutionary just to be a decent man.
By the end, everybody had a labelâpig, liberal, radical, revolutionary ... If you had everything but a gun, you were a radical but not a revolutionary.
One of the peculiarities of the American Revolution was that its leaders pinned their hopes on the organization of decision-making units, the structuring of their incentives, and the counterbalancing of the units against one another, rather than on the more usual (and more exciting) principle of substituting "the good guys" for "the bad guys.".
For the sake of domestic peace, liberalism aims at democratic government. Democracy is therefore not a revolutionary institution. On the contrary it is the very means of preventing revolution and civil wars. It provides a method for the peaceful adjustment of government to the will of the majority.
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
All revolutions...have been led by persons who knew oppression well, but not on their own skin.
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violen trevolution inevitable.
Progress has not followed a straight ascending line, but a spiral with rhythms of progress and retrogression, of evolution and dissolution.
To illustrate the difference between the innovator and the dull crowd of routinists who cannot even imagine that any improvement is possible, we need only refer to a passage in Engel's most famous book. Here, in 1878, Engels apodictically announced that military weapons are "now so perfected that no further progress of any revolutionizing influence is any longer possible." Henceforth "all further [technological] progress is by and large indifferent for land warfare. The age of evolution is in this regard essentially closed." This complacent conclusion shows in what the achievement of the innovator consists: he accomplishes what other people believe to be unthinkable and unfeasible.
Compared with the totality of knowledge which is continually utilized in the evolution of a dynamic civilization, the difference between the knowledge that the wisest and that which the most ignorant individual can deliberately employ is comparatively insignificant.
The revolutions of thought which shape the basic outlook of an age are not disseminated through text-books- they spread like epidemics, through contamination by invisible agents and innocent germ carriers, by the most varied forms of contact, or simply by breathing the common air.
Revolutions are not about trifles, but spring from trifles.
Revolutionaries are more formalistic than conservatives.
Do you think then that revolutions are made with rose water? [Fr., Voulez-vous donc qu'on vous fasse des revolutions a l'eau-rose?]
The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.
It is not a revolt, it is a revolution. [Fr., Ce n'est pas une revolte, c'est une revolution.]
I am the signet which marks the page where the revolution has been stopped; but when I die it will turn the page and resume its course. [Fr., Je suis le signet qui marque la page ou la revolution s'est arretee; mais quand je serai mort, elle tournera le feuillet et reprendra sa marche.]
Revolutions never go backward.
Revolutions are not made; they come.
I know and all the world knows, that revolutions never go backwards.
O God! that one might read the book of fate, And see the revolution of the times Make mountains level. and the continent, Weary of solid firmness, melt itself Into the sea!
Revolutionary moments attract those who are not good enough for established institutions as well as those who are too good for them.
Revolutions have never lightened the burden of tyranny: they have only shifted it to another shoulder.
Avoid revolution or expect to get shot. Mother and I will grieve, but we will gladly buy a dinner for the National Guardsman who shot you.
The Revolution has not yet succeeded. Comrades, you must carry on!
