Agitation Quotes - Page 2

• The short lesson that comes out of long experience in political agitation is something like this: all the motive power in all of these movements is the instinct of religious feeling. All the obstruction comes from attempting to rely on anything else. Conciliation is the enemy.

  John Jay Chapman

  Religious, Long, Political

  John Jay Chapman (1900). “Practical Agitation”

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• Such is the constitution of man that labour may be styled its own reward; nor will any external incitements be requisite, if it be considered how much happiness is gained, and how much misery escaped, by frequent and violent agitation of the body.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Body, May

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.146

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• If it had not been for the discontent of a few fellows who had not been satisfied with their conditions, you would still be living in caves. Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization. Progress is born of agitation. It is agitation or stagnation.

  Eugene V. Debs

  Life, Intelligent, Civilization

  "The Issue". Eugene V. Debs' speech in Girard, Kansas, May 23, 1908.

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• The purely agitational attitude is not good enough for a detailed consideration of a subject.

  Jawaharlal Nehru

  Attitude, Not Good Enough, Consideration

  Jawaharlal Nehru (1968). “Glorious thoughts of Nehru: being a treasury of over twelve thousand invaluable and inspiring thoughts, views and observations of Jawaharlal Nehru, collected from his writings and speeches and classified under four hundred subjects”

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• The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never allow us to bring about genuine change.

  Audre Lorde

  Games, House, May

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.112, Crossing Press

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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, Republican

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• Providence has given human wisdom the choice between two fates: either hope and agitation, or hopelessness and calm.

  Yevgeny Baratynsky

  Hope, Fate, Two

  "Two Fates" by Yevgeny Baratynsky, translated by Dmitri Obolensky, 1823.

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• What a peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call 'thought'.

  David Hume

  Philosophical, Brain, Peculiar

  David Hume (1854). “The Philosophical Works”, p.438

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• Indifference is harder to fight than hostility, and there is nothing that kills an agitation like having everybody admit that it is fundamentally right.

  Crystal Eastman

  Fighting, Indifference, Harder

  Crystal Eastman (1978). “Crystal Eastman on Women and Revolution”, Oxford University Press, USA

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• ...the Government must not think that they can stop this agitation. It will go on...We are here not because we are law-breakers; we are here in out efforts to become law-makers.

  Emmeline Pankhurst

  Women, Thinking, Government

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• Any revolutionary agitation exacts enormous sacrifices, not so much in terms of prison sentences and years of incarceration - which have been raining down by the hundreds of years annually - as in terms of the manifold personal sacrifices sustained by those who commit themselves to revolutionary agitation.

  Peter Kropotkin

  Rain, Sacrifice, Years

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• The Social-Democratic Federation took part in all the political and economic struggles of the English working class; it took pains to bring Socialist views home to them, not only through agitation and propaganda, but also by actions.

  Karl Radek

  Pain, Struggle, Home

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• The Buddhists say if you meet somebody and your heart pounds, your hands shake, your knees go weak, that’s not the one. When you meet your ‘soulmate’ you’ll feel calm. No anxiety, no agitation.

  Monica Drake

  Soulmate, Buddhist, Heart

  Monica Drake (2010). “Clown Girl: A Novel”, p.57, Hawthorne Books

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• Man made one grave mistake: in answer to vaguely reformist and humanitarian agitation he admitted women to politics and the professions. The conservatives who saw this as the undermining of our civilisation and the end of the state and marriage were right after all; it is time for the demolition to begin.

  Germaine Greer

  Mistake, Women, Answers

  germaine greer (1971). “the female eunuch”

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• Strong mental agitation and disturbance was no novelty to him, even before his late sufferings. It never is, to obstinate and sullen natures; for they struggle hard to be such.

  Charles Dickens

  Strong, Struggle, Words Of Wisdom

  Charles Dickens (1848). “Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son, Wholesale, Retail, and for Exportation”, p.295

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• We too are called to withdraw at certain intervals into deeper silence and aloneness with God, together as a community as well as personally; to be alone with Him — not with our books, thoughts, and memories but completely stripped of everything — to dwell lovingly in His presence, silent, empty, expectant, and motionless. We cannot find God in noise or agitation.

  Mother Teresa

  Memories, Book, Silence

  Mother Teresa of Calcutta (2010). “In the Heart of the World: Thoughts, Stories & Prayers (Easyread Large Edition)”, p.10, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep he waters pure.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Water, Public Opinion, Produce

  Letter to Marquis de Lafayette, 4 Nov. 1823

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• When you meet your 'soul mate' you'll feel calm. No anxiety, No agitation.

  Monica Drake

  Anxiety, Soul, Calm

  Monica Drake (2013). “Clown Girl: A Novel”, p.40, Hawthorne Books

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• Is it not astonishing that the love of repose keeps us in continual agitation?

  Stanisław I Leszczyński

  Repose, Astonishing, Uneasiness

  François duc de La Rochefoucauld, Stanisław I Leszczyński (King of Poland) (1851). “Moral Reflections, Sentences and Maxims of Francis, Duc de la Rochefoucauld”, p.164

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• Political agitation, by the passions it arouses or the convictions it engenders, may in fact stimulate men to the violation of the law. Detestation of existing policies is easily transformed into forcible resistance of the authority which puts them in execution, and it would be folly to disregard the causal relation between the two. Yet to assimilate agitation, legitimate as such, with direct incitement to violent resistance, is to disregard the tolerance of all methods of political agitation which in normal times is a safeguard of free government.

  Learned Hand

  Passion, Men, Law

  Learned Hand (1968). “The art and craft of judging: the decisions of Judge Learned Hand”

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• Agitation and commitment are dangerous for the peace of humanity, and the only thing which is even more dangerous is their absence.

  Hans Koning

  Commitment, Humanity, Absence

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• An affectionate disposition not only makes the mind more peaceful
  and calm, but it affects our body in a positive way too. On the
  other hand, hatred, jealousy and fear upset our peace of mind, make
  us agitated and affect our body adversely. Even our body needs peace
  of mind and is not suited to agitation. This shows that an
  appreciation for peace of mind is in our blood.

  Dalai Lama

  Jealousy, Appreciation, Buddhist

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• I love agitation and investigation and glory in defending unpopular truth against popular error.

  James A. Garfield

  Errors, Politics, Glory

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• Just as bones, tissues, intestines, and blood vessels are enclosed in a skin that makes it possible to bear the sight of a human being, so the agitations and passions of the soul are wrapped up in vanity: it is the soul's skin.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Passion, Vanity, Sight

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• America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Inspirational Life, Healing, America

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