Radical Quotes - Page 31

• A typical vice of American politics the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues, and the announcement of radical policies with much sound and fury, and at the same time with a cautious accompaniment of weasel phrases each of which sucks the meat out of the preceding statement.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Real, Issues, Vices

  Theodore Roosevelt (1941). “Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia”

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The only ‘realistic’ prospect is to ground a new
  political universality by opting for the impossible,
  fully assuming the place of the exception, with no
  taboos, no a priori norms (‘human rights,’ ‘democracy’),
  respect for which would prevent us from ‘resignifying’
  terror, the ruthless exercise of power, the spirit of
  sacrifice … if this radical choice is decried by some
  bleeding-heart liberals as Linksfaschismus, so be it!

  Slavoj Žižek

  Heart, Exercise, Sacrifice

  39 Copy quote

• If you could extend the elective franchise to all persons of color who can read the Constitution of the United States in English and write their names and to all persons of color who own real estate valued at not less than two hundred and fifty dollars and pay taxes thereon, and would completely disarm the adversary. This you can do with perfect safety. And as a consequence, the radicals, who are wild upon negro franchise, will be completely foiled in their attempts to keep the Southern States from renewing their relations to the Union.

  Andrew Johnson

  Real, Writing, Color

  Andrew Johnson (1967). “The Papers of Andrew Johnson: May-August 1865”, p.599, Univ. of Tennessee Press

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Obama is a radical communist and I think it is becoming clear. That is what I told people in Illinois and now everybody realizes it is coming true. He is going to destroy this country and we are either going to stop him or the United States of America is going to cease to exist.

  Alan Keyes

  Country, Thinking, America

  "Alan Keyes: Doing What He Does Best" by Kyle Mantyla, www.rightwingwatch.org. February 20, 2009.

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• Think about the strangeness of today's situation. Thirty, forty years ago, we were still debating about what the future will be: communist, fascist, capitalist, whatever. Today, nobody even debates these issues. We all silently accept global capitalism is here to stay. On the other hand, we are obsessed with cosmic catastrophes: the whole life on earth disintegrating, because of some virus, because of an asteroid hitting the earth, and so on. So the paradox is, that it's much easier to imagine the end of all life on earth than a much more modest radical change in capitalism.

  Slavoj Žižek

  Thinking, Hands, Years

  "Mapping Ideology" by Slavoj Žižek, p.1, 1994.

  117 Copy quote

  Show source

• Invariably will you find perseverance exemplified as the radical principle in every truly great character. It facilitates, perfects, and consolidates the execution of the plan conceived, and renders profitable its results when attained. By continuing to advance steadily in the same way, light constantly increases, obstacles disappear, efficient habits are confirmed, experience is acquired, the use of the best means is reduced to easy action, and success becomes more sure.

  Elias Lyman Magoon

  Perseverance, Character, Mean

  Elias Lyman Magoon (1849). “Proverbs for the people: or, Illustrations of practical godliness drawn from the Book of wisdom”, p.186

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Experiments in digitizing and running neural wetware under emulation are well established; some radical libertarians claim that, as the technology matures, death with its draconian curtailment of property and voting rights will become the biggest civil rights issue of all.

  Charles Stross

  Running, Technology, Rights

  Charles Stross (2010). “Accelerando”, p.49, Hachette UK

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• When we use the term pig, for example, we are referring to the people who systematically violate the peoples' constitutional rights - whether they be monopoly capitalists or police. The term is now being adopted by radicals, hippies, and minority peoples. Even the workers, when the pigs supported strike-breakers like they did as Union Oil where 100 local police came in a cracked strikers' heads, began to call them by their true name.

  Bobby Seale

  Hippie, Rights, Pigs

  The Guardian Interview, February 1970.

  76 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the potential of absurdity, hiding in the disparate combination of the various different subjects which in themselves are nothing but daily items equally in the exclusive representation of a normal item taken out of their usual context, is by far the most radical - in its effect comparable to a Japanese Zen koan - paradox to be witnessed, which modern art has produced, one of the most forceful impulses that generated from it.

  Antoni Tapies

  Art, Taken, Usual

  "Tàpies, Werke auf Papier 1943 - 2003" by Antoni Tapies, Kunsthalle Emden, edited by Achim Sommer, Altana, (p. 28), 2004.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• You can't please everyone, especially if you're doing very radical things at the vanguard of cooking. That's life; it's a polemic I've lived with since I started cooking.

  Ferran Adria

  Cooking, Vanguard, Polemics

  21 Copy quote

• More than one branch of the avant-garde, claiming to break with the bourgeois vision and mode of production, remains tied to it in spite of its denials and ex-communications. We are far from having overcome bourgeois thought or practices, despite the socialist "intermission" between the Russian revolution and the collapse of the Berlin wall. The avant-garde has lost its radical nature. On the other hand, "bourgeois theatre" is sometimes subtle enough to flirt with the avant-garde or to make "intelligent boulevard theatre.

  Patrice Pavis

  Wall, Communication, Flirting

  7 Copy quote

• I don't need to be a radical to think that who a dragon is counts more than birth or wealth," Selendra said, with what dignity she could."Why, that's the very definition of a radical," he retorted.

  Jo Walton

  Thinking, Dragons, Needs

  Jo Walton (2013). “Tooth and Claw”, p.137, Hachette UK

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Shannon's most radical insight was that meaning was irrelevant.

  William Poundstone

  Shannon, Insight, Irrelevant

  "Fortune's Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street". Book by William Poundstone, 2005.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The public's continuing ambivalence about cultural matters is all the more striking given that the political conversation on these issues has for 30 years been dominated by an aggressive, radical right-wing insurgency that has achieved an influence far out of proportion to its numbers. Its potent secret weapon has been the guilt and anxiety about desire that inform the character of Americans regardless of ideology; appealing to those largely unconscious emotions, the right has disarmed, intimidated, paralyzed its opposition.

  Ellen Willis

  Character, Years, Wings

  "Escape from Freedom". "Situations: Project of the Radical Imagination", Vol 1, No 2, 2006.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Stirner's political praxis is quixotic. It accepts the established hierarchies of constraint as given. ... Not liable to any radical change, they constitute part of the theatre housing the individual's action. ... The egoist uses the elements of the social structure as props in his self-expressive act.

  John Carroll

  Self, Political, Theatre

  7 Copy quote

• I went to a school that was founded on a lot of very radical ideals of how education should be changed. But what's happening to schools like that sort of all over the country is in economic pressure they're becoming more and more preparatory because that's what people will really pay the money for private schooling for now.

  Ezra Miller

  Country, School, People

  The Cinema Source, September 08, 2011.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• If we want to destroy ISIS,if we expect to do this on our own, we will fail but if we do it in unison with people who are also are at risk and threatened by Islamic Radical terrorism, we'll be far more successful.

  Jeb Bush

  Islamic, Successful, Isis

  Source: cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Though [Charles Guignebert] could not accept either the Christ myth theory, which held that no historical Jesus existed, or the Dutch Radical denial that Paul authored any of the epistles, Guignebert took both quite seriously.

  Robert M. Price

  Jesus, Historical, Denial

  "The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief". Book by Tom Flynn, 2007.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The belief that it is useless to employ partial and palliative means against radical evils, because they only remedy them in part, is an article of faith never preached unsuccessfully by meanness to simplicity, but it is none the less absurd.

  Theodor Mommsen

  Mean, Evil, Simplicity

  "The History of Rome - Volume 4: Part 2" by Theodor Mommsen, translated by W.P.Dickson, 1866.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• All things, all circumstances that occur outside ourselves, on the stage of this world, are exclusively the reflection of what we carry within. With good reason then, we can solemnly declare that the 'exterior is the reflection of the interior.' When someone changes internally and if that change is radical, then circumstances, life and the external also change.

  Samael Aun Weor

  Reflection, World, Reason

  Samael Aun Weor (2013). “Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology: The Gnostic Method of Real Spiritual Awakening”, p.9, Glorian Publishing

  55 Copy quote

  Show source

• Faced with such insecurity, labor unions seek a solution in demands for higher wages, shorter hours, pensions, and such things. But this approach takes monopolistic capitalism for granted, and accepts the unnatural division between property and responsibility as permanent. A much more radical solution is apt to come, and this may take either of two forms.

  Fulton J. Sheen

  Wisdom, Responsibility, Two

  5 Copy quote

• It is indeed my opinion now that evil is never “radical,” that it is only extreme, and that it possess neither depth nor any demonic dimension. It can overgrow and lay waste the whole world precisely because it spreads like fungus on the surface. It is “thought-defying,” as I said, because thought tries to reach some depth, to go to the roots, and the moment it concerns itself with evil, it is frustrated because there is nothing. That is its “banality.” Only the good has depth and can be radical.

  Hannah Arendt

  Roots, Evil, Frustrated

  Hannah Arendt (2000). “The Portable Hannah Arendt”, Penguin Group USA

  80 Copy quote

  Show source

• ...love rather than fear...this radical philosophy is coming from me, an avowed misanthrope...surely there is hope for us all.

  Bill Hicks

  Philosophy, Misanthrope, There Is Hope

  13 Copy quote

• There are reports that leaders from ISIS and al-Qaida met at a farm house in Syria last week, and agreed to work together against their common enemies. That story again: Two radical terrorist groups managed to do what two American political parties cannot.

  Jimmy Fallon

  Party, Isis, Two

  4 Copy quote

• Radical Christians are not people who wear Christian t-shirts. Radical Christians are those who bear fruit of the Holy Spirit...A little boy, Andrew, a Muslim shot him five times through the stomach and left him on a sidewalk simply because he said, 'I am so afraid, but I can not deny Jesus Christ! Please don't kill me! But I will not deny Him!' He died in a pool of blood, and you talk about being a radical Christian because you wear a t-shirt!

  Paul Washer

  Christian, Jesus, Boys

  372 Copy quote