Subversive Quotes - Page 7

• It was as if he grew his hair long and smoked cigarettes because he liked to, not because he liked being seen to. This was dangerously subversive.

  Stephen Fry

  Hair, Long, Cigarette

  Stephen Fry (2003). “The Liar”, p.22, Soho Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I don't remember when exactly I read my first comic book, but I do remember exactly how liberated and subversive I felt as a result.

  Edward Said

  Book, Firsts, Remember

  25 Copy quote

• Maybe there is no better novel in the world than Denton Welch's In Youth Is Pleasure. Just holding it in my hands, so precious, so beyond gay, so deliciously subversive, is enough to make illiteracy a worse social crime than hunger.

  John Waters

  Gay, Hands, World

  8 Copy quote

• Socrates himself said, 'One thing only I know, and this is that I know nothing.' Remember this statement, because it is an admission that is rare, even among philosophers. Moreover, it can be so dangerous to say in public that it can cost you your life. The most subversive people are those who ask questions. Giving answers is not nearly as threatening. Any one question can be more explosive than a thousand answers.

  Jostein Gaarder

  People, Giving, Cost

  Jostein Gaarder (2010). “Sophie's World”, p.66, Hachette UK

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• So Rita and I decided that the most subversive, revolutionary thing I could do was to show up for my life and not be ashamed.

  Anne Lamott

  Revolutionary, Ashamed, Shows

  Anne Lamott (1994). “Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year”, Fawcett

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Poetry reaches into places in us that we are suppose to ignore or mistrust, that are perceived as subversive or non-useful, in what is fast becoming known as global culture.

  Adrienne Rich

  Culture, Becoming, Mistrust

  Source: www.paulodacosta.ca

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is subversive to set up inquisitions like this, state or national, into the thoughts and consciences of Americans. . . . It is subversive for commissions like this to spread hysteria and intimidation throughout the land that Americans are afraid to sign petitions, afraid to read progressive magazines, afraid to make out checks for liberal causes, afraid to join organizations, afraid to speak their mind on public issues. Americans dare not be free citizens! This is the destruction of democracy.

  Florence Luscomb

  Women, Hysteria, Issues

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  19 Copy quote

• I teach self-reliance, the world's most subversive practice. I teach people how to grow their own food, which is shockingly subversive. So, yes, it’s seditious. But it’s peaceful sedition.

  Bill Mollison

  Self, Practice, People

  "Permaculture: A Quiet Revolution". Interview with Scott London, www.scottlondon.com.

  123 Copy quote

  Show source

• Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive... To invent your own life's meaning is not easy, but it's still allowed, and I think you'll be happier for the trouble.

  Bill Watterson

  Good Life, Thinking, Creating

  "Some thoughts on the real world by one who glimpsed it and fled". Bill Watterson's commencement speech at the Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, www.graduationwisdom.com. May 20, 1990.

  70 Copy quote

  Show source

• Teachings and ideologies subversive to the fundamental principles of this great Republic, which are contrary to the Constitution of the United States, or which are detrimental to the progress of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, will be condemned, whether advocated by Republicans or Democrats.

  David O. McKay

  Jesus, Teaching, Progress

  4 Copy quote

• I think we got much better poetry when it was all regarded as sinful or subversive, and you had to hide it under the cushion when somebody came in.

  Philip Larkin

  Thinking, Cushions

  8 Copy quote

• In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive.

  Bill Watterson

  Good Life, Culture, Excess

  "Some thoughts on the real world by one who glimpsed it and fled". Bill Watterson's commencement speech at the Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, www.graduationwisdom.com. May 20, 1990.

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• The party impulse is a very subversive impulse. I mean, you know, a lot of artists have too much integrity to sell their art as a brand; but who has so much integrity that they would turn down a party?

  Terence McKenna

  Art, Integrity, Mean

  4 Copy quote

• There is nothing as dreamy and poetic, nothing as radical, subversive, and psychedelic, as mathematics.

  Paul Lockhart

  Psychedelic, Poetic, Mathematics

  "A Mathematician's Lament" by Paul Lockhart, genius.com. January 1, 2002.

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• When I first read 'On the Road,' it helped me figure out how to live against the grain. Now I wonder how to be subversive when the subversive has become mainstream.

  Tony D'Souza

  Firsts, Wonder, Mainstream

  4 Copy quote

• If [the legislature] will positively enact a thing to be done, the judges are not at liberty to reject it, for that were to set the judicial power above that of the legislature, which would be subversive of all government.

  William Blackstone

  Government, Judging, Rejection

  22 Copy quote

• I know everybody wants humor to be subversive and speak truth to power. I don't think power's been listening, incidentally.

  Robert Mankoff

  Thinking, Listening, Want

  "New Yorker Cartoon Editor Explores What Makes Us Get It". "Fresh Air" with David Bianculli, www.npr.org. December 29, 2014.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The constitutionality and propriety of the Federal Government assuming to enter into a novel and vast field of legislation, namely, that of providing for the care and support of all those ... who by any form of calamity become fit objects of public philanthropy. ... I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for making the Federal Government the great almoner of public charity throughout the United States. To do so would, in my judgment, be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and subversive of the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded.

  Franklin Pierce

  Power, Government, Support

  66 Copy quote

• Normal science, the activity in which most scientists inevitably spend most all their time, is predicated on the assumption that the scientific community knows what the world is like. Normal science often suppresses fundamental novelties because they are necessarily subversive of its basic commitments.

  Thomas Kuhn

  Wisdom, Commitment, Successful

  "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions". Book by Thomas Kuhn, 1962.

  31 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's even occurred to me, as a teeny little subversive whisper of a thought, that if we stop mowing the lawn right now, it will probably be a long, long time before the yard gets overrun by lions and snakes.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Snakes, Long, Yards

  4 Copy quote

• The political cartoon, in a way, is one of the highest forms of expression about our times. I don't believe in dramatic statements when it comes to political critique. It doesn't communicate in a way that's subversive enough.

  Camille Henrot

  Believe, Expression, Political

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Original philosophy is always "deviant" or even subversive.

  Mario Bunge

  Philosophy, Deviants, Originals

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you see the blood, then there's an easy association of the violence. The violence that happens when there isn't blood is actually much more subversive and unsettling.

  Bryan Fuller

  Blood, Association, Violence

  "'Hannibal' And The Consequences Of Violence". Interview with Kate Aurthur, www.buzzfeed.com. May 14, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Comics can definitely be subversive on the whole, but it's a stylistic thing.

  Ted Alexandro

  Whole

  "Laughing at something is a form of accepting it, or at least making peace with it". Interview with Chris Cobb, logger.believermag.com. September 19, 2014.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source