Agitate Quotes

• Agitation is the marshalling of the conscience of a nation to mold its laws.

  Robert Peel

  Law, Mold, Agitation

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• Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress.

  Frederick Douglass

  Philosophy, Struggle, August

  Frederick Douglass, Philip Sheldon Foner, Yuval Taylor (1999). “Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings”, p.367, Chicago Review Press

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• It is odd but agitation or contest of any kind gives a rebound to my spirits and sets me up for a time.

  Lord Byron

  Time, Giving, Agitation

  "Poet of all the passions" by Fiona MacCarthy, www.theguardian.com. November 8, 2002.

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• Minds that are ill at ease are agitated by both hope and fear.

  Ovid

  Fear, Psychology, Mind

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• Pour some water into a tub and stir it up. Now try as hard as you can to calm the water with your hands; you will succeed in agitating it further. Let it stand undisturbed a while, and it will calm down by itself. The human brain works much the same way.

  Koichi Tohei

  Art, Philosophy, Hands

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• Happiness is good, but well-overrated: what we hate most are the very motivators that put us in gear. A man drifts along with little to contribute until something agitates him enough to make a difference, whether for himself or for his communities.

  Criss Jami

  Hate, Men, Differences

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.113, Criss Jami

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• The risk is enormous to Democrats. Even talking about censure or impeachment threatens to really agitate the Republican base.

  Charlie Cook

  Talking, Risk, Agitation

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• Unless the poor of the world agitate for themselves to be heard, there will be no changes in their circumstances.

  Vandana Shiva

  World, Poor, Circumstances

  "Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability And Peace". Book by Vandana Shiva, 2005.

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• My aim is to agitate and disturb people. I'm not selling bread; I'm selling yeast.

  Miguel de Unamuno

  People, Yeast, Bread

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• Those things which make the infernal regions terrible, the darkness, the prison, the river of flaming fire, the judgment seat, are all a fable, with which the poets amuse themselves, and by them agitate us with vain terrors.

  Seneca the Younger

  Rivers, Fire, Darkness

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• Clouds pass and disperse. Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables? Is it for such I agitate my heart?

  Sylvia Plath

  Heart, Clouds, Faces

  Sylvia Plath (2010). “Ariel: The Restored Edition”, p.35, Faber & Faber

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• A reporter is always concerned with tomorrow. There's nothing tangible of yesterday. All I can say I've done is agitate the air ten or fifteen minutes and then boom - it's gone.

  Edward R. Murrow

  Air, Yesterday, Gone

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• Ghosts Take shape under moonlight, materialize in dreams. Shadows. Silhouettes of what is no more. But ghosts don't bother me. The day brings bigger things to worry about than flimsy remains of yesterday. No, spooks don't scare me. Gauzy apparitions might prank your psyche or agitate your nightmares, but lacking flesh and blood they are powerless to hurt you-cannot hope to inflict the kind of damage that real, live people do.

  Ellen Hopkins

  Dream, Hurt, Real

  Ellen Hopkins (2013). “Perfect”, p.61, Simon and Schuster

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• Humility does not disturb or disquiet or agitate, however great it may be; it comes with peace, delight, and calm. . . . The pain of genuine humility doesn't agitate or afflict the soul; rather, this humility expands it and enables it to serve God more.

  Teresa of Avila

  Pain, Humility, Soul

  Teresa of Avila (2011). “The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, vol 2”, p.89, ICS Publications

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• Very often, in order to bring about stillness we have to be tirelessly active in the outer world. You might suppose this would agitate the mind. It will not, if it is the dharma.

  Frederick Lenz

  Buddhism, Order, Mind

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• The prosecution [of impeachments], will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust, and they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Party, Passion, Men

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• Our duty to ourselves, to posterity, and to mankind, call on us
  by every motive which is sacred or honorable, to watch over the safety of our beloved country
  during the troubles which agitate and convulse the residue of the world, and to sacrifice to
  that all personal and local considerations.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Sacrifice, Safety

  Thomas Jefferson, Richard Holland Johnston, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”

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• The problems that agitate one generation are exstinguished for the next, not because they have been solved but because the general lack of interest sweeps them away.

  Cesare Pavese

  Generations, Next, Problem

  Cesare Pavese, Alma Elizabeth Murch (1961). “This Business of Living”, p.295, Transaction Publishers

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• It is not the lefty ass-kissers you have to agitate, but the objective left-wing...

  Gudrun Ensslin

  Wings, Lefties, Ass

  "A Terrorist Call for 'Building a Red Army'". germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org. June 5, 1970.

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• Perhaps one reason that many working parents do not agitate for collective reform, such as more governmental or corporate child care, is that the parents fear, deep down, that to share responsibility for child rearing is to abdicate it.

  Faye J Crosby

  Children, Responsibility, Working Parents

  Faye J. Crosby (1993). “Juggling: the unexpected advantages of balancing career and home for women and their families”, Touchstone

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• The advent of truth, like the dawn of day, agitates the elements, while it disperses the gloom.

  Elias Lyman Magoon

  Truth, Dawn, Elements

  Elias Lyman Magoon (1849). “Proverbs for the people: or, Illustrations of practical godliness drawn from the Book of wisdom”, p.219

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• Men don't like to step abruptly out of the security of familiar experience; they need a bridge to cross from their own experience to a new way. A revolutionary organizer must shake up the prevailing patterns of their lives - agitate, create disenchantment and discontent with the current values, to produce, if not a passion for change, at least a passive, affirmative, non-challenging climate.

  Saul Alinsky

  Passion, Men, Bridges

  "Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals" by Saul Alinsky, (pp. xxi-xxii), 1971.

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• The citizen who thinks he sees that the commonwealth's political clothes are worn out, and yet holds his peace and does not agitate for a new suit, is disloyal, he is a traitor. That he may be the only one who thinks he sees this decay, does not excuse him: it is his duty to agitate anyway, and it is the duty of others to vote him down if they do not see the matter as he does.

  Mark Twain

  Thinking, Clothes, Political

  Mark Twain (1889). “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court”, p.101, Createspace Independent Pub

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• An assembly of the states, a court of justice, shows nothing so serious and grave as a table of gamesters playing very high; a melancholy solicitude clouds their looks; envy and rancor agitate their minds while the meeting lasts, without regard to friendship, alliances, birth or distinctions.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Clouds, Gambling, Envy

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• I don't know how you feel, but I feel like writing, clarity of thought, and truth have been validated because we see what happens when we get lax in those areas. I'm excited by the idea that writers like us can actually reach out and try to understand and prod and agitate the people who are in support of Trump because we have the tools to do it. We're language people and we're idea people.

  George Saunders

  Writing, Ideas, People

  Source: therumpus.net

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