Subversive Quotes - Page 4

I really didn't realize the librarians were, you know, such a dangerous group. They are subversive. You think they're just sitting there at the desk, all quiet and everything. They're like plotting the revolution, man. I wouldn't mess with them. You know, they've had their budgets cut. They're paid nothing. Books are falling apart. The libraries are just like the ass end of everything, right?

Michael Moore

Book, Fall, Cutting

4 Copy quote
The most socially subversive institution of our time is the one-parent family.

Paul Johnson

Family, Parent, Institutions

10 Copy quote
My only criticism about Quentin Crisp is that the subversive must be ready to subvert themselves. I may dress for myself, but I undress for everybody else, whereas he never did that - he was never prepared to drop a bomb on everything he did.

Sebastian Horsley

Criticism, Dresses, Bombs

Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

4 Copy quote

Show source
What is subversive today, will almost certainly be patriotic tomorrow.

Lucius Beebe

Patriotic, Today, Tomorrow

6 Copy quote
Our motto is, 'Be gentle and subversive.'

Petra Kelly

Motto, Gentle

4 Copy quote
If I were a 13-year-old and I wanted to create subversive art, I wouldn't go out and buy an electric guitar. I'd get myself a personal computer.

Thomas Dolby

Art, Guitar, Years

4 Copy quote
We need to be I think equally sensitive to the injurious power of certain kinds of speech acts but also to the subversive and possibly liberatory effects of certain kinds of play.

Judith Butler

Thinking, Play, Needs

Source: ilga.org

8 Copy quote

Show source
The automobile, practical since 1906, was proceeding to disintegrate and stamp anew the pattern of communication, manners, and city life in the United States, by 1918; before long, men would begin to see that the automobile, and the mass production techniques which made its possible, could alter the national character and morality more thoroughly than could the most absolute of tyrants. As a mechanical Jacobin, it rivaled the dynamo. The productive process which made these vehicles cheap was still more subversive of the old ways than was the gasoline engine itself.

Russell Kirk

Communication, Character, Men

8 Copy quote
My art teacher in junior high was a very out gay man and a mentor to me. He would tell us about Greenwich Village and show us the 'Village Voice' and describe his life, but it was all sort of subversive and below the radar.

Gus Van Sant

Teacher, Art, Gay

Interview with Tony Dushane, www.motherjones.com. December 5, 2008.

56 Copy quote

Show source
Ultimately, Photography is subversive, not when it frightens, repels, or even stigmatizes, but when it is pensive, when it thinks.

Roland Barthes

Photography, Thinking, Pensive

10 Copy quote
Every rebellion against suffering is fed by the subversive power of remembered suffering.

Johann Baptist Metz

Pain, Suffering, Remember

58 Copy quote
In a society that considers all genuine ideas subversive, which seeks to discourage ideological imagination, and which aims to abolish thought in favour of spectacle, the main goal must be to awaken people’s consciences, raising traumatising problems and sending ideological electroshocks: shocking ideas.

Guillaume Faye

Ideas, People, Imagination

Guillaume Faye, Michael O'Meara (2010). “Archeofuturism”, p.15, Arktos

13 Copy quote

Show source
Ive never been a popular person, but it doesnt matter. I have everything in my life that I want. Im not a walking publicity stunt. Im not an anarchist, or bitter. Im not trying to be subversive. I just try to remain unguarded, unprotected by fear, and agents and publicists, and I feel comfortable that way.

Vincent Gallo

Trying, Agents, Want

7 Copy quote
Subversive language, however, must be constantly reinvented, because it is continually being co-opted by the powerful.

Carol P. Christ

Powerful, Language

4 Copy quote
Good movies make you care, make you believe in possibilities again. If somewhere in the Hollywood-entertainment world someone has managed to break through with something that speaks to you, then it isn’t all corruption. The movie doesn’t have to be great; it can be stupid and empty and you can still have the joy of a good performance, or the joy in just a good line. An actor’s scowl, a small subversive gesture, a dirty remark that someone tosses off with a mock-innocent face, and the world makes a little bit of sense.

Pauline Kael

Stupid, Believe, Dirty

Pauline Kael (1994). “For keeps”, E P Dutton

10 Copy quote

Show source
The secret subversive goal of my work is to show that women, not just lesbians, are regular human beings.

Alison Bechdel

Goal, Secret, Shows

18 Copy quote
I've been surprised by how little criticism I've got. Harry Potter's been taking all the flak. I'm a great fan of J.K. Rowling, but the people - mainly from America's Bible Belt - who complain that Harry Potter promotes Satanism or witchcraft obviously haven't got enough in their lives. Meanwhile, I've been flying under the radar, saying things that are far more subversive than anything poor old Harry has said. My books are about killing God.

Philip Pullman

Book, America, People

"The shed where God died". Interview with Steve Meacham, www.smh.com.au. December 13, 2003.

18 Copy quote

Show source
It is my rather subversive opinion that a writer's feelings of anonymity-obscurity are the second most valuable property on loan to him during his working years.

J. D. Salinger

Years, Feelings, Obscurity

"JD Salinger: from boy of war, to modern man of letters" by Robert McCrum, www.theguardian.com. January 30, 2010.

4 Copy quote

Show source
All art is subversive.

Pablo Picasso

Art, Art Is

7 Copy quote
Gratitude is liberating. It is subversive. It helps us to realize that we are sufficient, and that realization frees us.

Joanna Macy

Gratitude, Realization, Helping

Joanna Macy (2007). “World as Lover, World as Self: A Guide to Living Fully in Turbulent times”, p.72, Parallax Press

89 Copy quote

Show source
The measures adopted to restore public order are: First of all, the elimination of the so-called subversive elements. ... They were elements of disorder and subversion. On the morrow of each conflict I gave the categorical order to confiscate the largest possible number of weapons of every sort and kind. This confiscation, which continues with the utmost energy, has given satisfactory results.

Benito Mussolini

Gun, Numbers, Government

15 Copy quote
...I am opposed to all attempts to license or restrict the arming of individuals... I consider such laws a violation of civil liberty, subversive of democratic political institutions, and self-defeating in their purpose.

Robert A. Heinlein

Gun, Self, Law

7 Copy quote
It has now become the doctrine of a large clan of politicians that political honesty is unnecessary, slow, subversive of a man's interests, and incompatible with quick onward movement.

Anthony Trollope

Honesty, Men, Political

31 Copy quote
Our society accepts the book as a given, but the act of reading -- once considered useful and important, as well as potentially dangerous and subversive -- is now condescendingly accepted as a pastime, a slow pastime that lacks efficiency and does not contribute to the common good.

Alberto Manguel

Book, Reading, Important

Alberto Manguel (2011). “The Library at Night”, p.209, Vintage Canada

5 Copy quote

Show source
To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.

Charles Darwin

Distance, Believe, Eye

"The Collapse of Evolution". Book by Scott Huse, p. 73, 1996.

19 Copy quote

Show source