Gadflies Quotes

• Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Dark, Men, Racism

  "Letter from a Birmingham Jail". www.africa.upenn.edu. April 16, 1963.

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• I am that gadfly which God has attached to the state, and all day long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you.

  Socrates

  Long, Curiosity, States

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• Conflict is the gadfly of thought. It stirs us to observation and memory. It instigates invention. It shocks us out of sheep-like passivity, and sets us at noting and contriving…conflict is a sine qua non of reflection and ingenuity.

  John Dewey

  Memories, Reflection, Sheep

  John Dewey (2007). “Human Nature and Conduct: An Introduction to Social Psychology”, p.300, Cosimo, Inc.

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• We must not overlook the role that extremists play. They are the gadflies that keep society from being too complacent.

  Abraham Flexner

  Play, Empathy, Liberty

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• ...it's just another one of those things I don't understand: everyone impresses upon you how unique you are, encouraging you to cultivate your individuality while at the same time trying to squish you and everyone else into the same ridiculous mould. It's an artist's right to rebel against the world's stupidity

  E. A. Bucchianeri

  Funny, Stupid, Unique

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• So it's true, when all is said and done, grief is the price we pay for love.

  E. A. Bucchianeri

  Heartbreak, True Love, Heartbroken

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• It's an artist's right to rebel against the world's stupidity.

  E. A. Bucchianeri

  Artist, Stupidity, Rebel

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• Make your lives a masterpiece, you only get one canvas.

  E. A. Bucchianeri

  Canvas, Masterpiece

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• I am an artist you know ... it is my right to be odd.

  E. A. Bucchianeri

  Artist, Odd, Knows

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• Errors do not cease to be errors simply because they're ratified into law.

  E. A. Bucchianeri

  Errors, Law, Cease

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• It was not curiosity that killed the goose who laid the golden egg, but an insatiable greed that devoured common sense.

  E. A. Bucchianeri

  Eggs, Common Sense, Greed

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• An acquaintance merely enjoys your company, a fair-weather companion flatters when all is well, a true friend has your best interests at heart and the pluck to tell you what you need to hear.

  E. A. Bucchianeri

  True Love, True Friend, Heart

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• Grief is the price we pay for love.

  Queen Elizabeth II

  Life, Sympathy, Grief

  "Happy birthday, Queen Elizabeth. The world needs you now more than ever" by Lee Cohen, www.foxnews.com. April 21, 2016.

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• I don't think writers should be convenient examples. I don't think we should make people feel settled. I don't try to be a gadfly, but I do think that real ideas are troublesome. There should be something about my work that leaves the reader unsettled. I intend that.

  Richard Rodriguez

  Real, Thinking, Ideas

  Source: www.teachingbooks.net

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• We must not overlook the role that extremists play. They are the gadflies that keep society from being too complacent or self-satisfied; they are, if sound, the spearhead of progress. If they are fundamentally wrong, free discussion will in time put an end to them.

  Abraham Flexner

  Science, Self, Play

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• In Plato's republic, poets were considered subversive, a danger to the republic. I kind of relish that role. So I see my present role as a gadfly, to use my soapbox to promote my various ideas and obsesions.

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  Plato, Ideas, Republic

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• Athens is like a sluggish horse, and I am the gadfly trying to sting it into life.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Horse, Trying, Athens

  Jostein Gaarder (2010). “Sophie's World”, p.64, Hachette UK

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• I'm noticing an exciting trend around the country: a resurgence of interest in Christian apologetics (the defense of the faith). This is a reaction to the current attacks on the essentials of Christianity that are coming from militant atheists, radical professors, and Internet gadflies.

  Lee Strobel

  Christian, Country, Atheist

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• So Socrates was a kind of gadfly. He was a sort of philosophical urban gorilla hanging around in the middle of Athens, asking these peculiar questions of everybody - important people, young men, slaves - questions that had to do with ultimately what's the life that's worth living. And Plato was one of the young men who hung around him, a very aristocratic young man, came from a very old, important family.

  Rebecca Goldstein

  Plato, Philosophical, Men

  "What Do We Have To Teach Plato?". "Here And Now" with Jeremy Hobson, news.stlpublicradio.org. April 22, 2014.

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• Give a bull grass, sweet water and a willing heifer and he is happy. But a man is never content. If no gadflies of worry exist he will invent them.

  Alison Fell

  Sweet, Men, Giving

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• I'm a chameleon, so changeable. I see myself as a gadfly and a questioner.

  Philip Johnson

  Chameleon

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• Seeing clearly within himself and always able to dodge around the ends of any position, including his own, Shaw assumed from the start the dual role of prophet and gadfly. To his contemporaries it appeared frivolous and contradictory to perform as both superman and socialist, sceptic and believer, legalist and heretic, high-brow and mob-orator. But feeling the duty to teach as well as to mirror mankind, Shaw did not accept himself as a contradictory being.

  Jacques Barzun

  Mirrors, Feelings, Dodge

  "Bernard Shaw in Twilight" by Jacques Barzun in "The Kenyon Review", Volume 5, No. 3 (pp. 321-345), Part II, www.jstor.org. Summer 1943.

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• The Saylor Foundation is meant to be a gadfly to encourage Google, Apple, MIT, Harvard, the United States government, and the Chinese government to aggressively pursue digital education.

  Michael J. Saylor

  Government, Apples, Google

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