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Rebellion Quotes

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Rebellion Quotes

“Nonconformity is an empty goal, and rebellion against prevailing opinion merely because it is prevailing should no more be praised than acquiescence to it. Indeed, it is often a mask for cowardice, and few are more pathetic than those who flaunt outer differences to expiate their inner surrender.”

“If only we could love ourselves enough to dare to approach God, what constructive dreams he would give us! What noble possibilities God wants to reveal to us - possibilities that would offer stimulation plus real security in service. But we feel too unworthy. So one layer of negative behavior is laid upon another until we emerge as rebellious sinners. But our rebellion is a reaction, not our nature. By nature we are fearful, not bad.”

“Paris, hours in the café, a certain spirit of rebellion, one side a bit too stubborn, the sea, the true, in Bretagne, the walking in Provence, the taste, the passion for literature, the libraries, the beautiful editions, remaking the world in a set of hours around a table and a bottle of wine. Talking without really saying nothing, just for the pleasure of talking. The museums, the theatres, the elegance, the delicacy, the heritage of the Illustration, a humanistic philosophy. The balance we got between a nordic rigor and a latin savoir-vivre, the insolence and the freedom.”

“To repress rebellion is to maintain the status quo, a condition which binds the mortal creature in a state of intellectual or physical slavery. But it is impossible to chain man merely by slaving his body; the mind also must be held, and to accomplish this, fear is the accepted weapon. The common man must fear life, fear death, fear God, fear the Devil, and fear most the overlords, the keepers of his destiny.”

“As a late teenager, the punk movement pushed me further. In particular, the Clash, which happened to leak through the time of disco, showed me that there was this cross-cultural sound that could cut across genres and audiences. Like punk was to disco, rap music was a rebellion against R&B, which had adopted disco and made it worse.”

“You also had in Detroit that summer, an early variation of Ferguson. A black prostitute was shot in the back by police. And all of the efforts that a very progressive police chief and mayor of that period had put into trying to restore race relations started to fall apart again, and you could see that unraveling for several years until the riots or rebellion of 1967.”

“Kerouac's books portray a hero and narrator free and easy, confident, sure of his rebellion against the American system. In reality, Jack was torn between Catholicism, Buddhism, and his own demon-driven pursuit of kicks, between spirit and flesh, between mom's house and the Beat coffeehouse, patriotism and subversion, men and women, society and solitude, carousing and meditation, sacred and profane, secular and divine. It's a miracle he survived as long as he did.”

“I think the music industry, for instance, is such a huge, multibazillion-dollar industry and it's become very, very savvy. There's a very short grace period in which actual human rebellion or resistance can thrive before it's co-opted by these huge companies. And all of youth culture is packaged and sold back to us at this furious rate these days. I think it's part and parcel to this corporate encroachment on our lives in general.”

“The white music was melodic and pretty, and you had beautiful women's voices like Gogi Grant and even the Andrews Sisters. Then I went directly to rhythm and blues, which had beautiful voices but not much melody in particular and pretty much the same chord pattern. I loved it, I was entrenched in it, but then folk music came in the middle of that for me, and made its own path. And it was part of the rebellion against bubblegum music, or music that is pretty but doesn't say anything.”

“If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice, or representation.”

“My mother was okay with me not playing it safe. She made an agreement with my father that I was going to be raised differently than my brother and sister were. My parents went through the whole sixties rebellion with my brother and sister. But I didn't feel like I had to rebel because I didn't have anyone telling me I couldn't do something. I never went into that parents-as-enemies stage.”

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

“Anyway, what is a country? When people say, "Tell me about India," I say, "Which India?.... The land of poetry and mad rebellion? The one that produces haunting music and exquisite textiles? The one that invented the caste system and celebrates the genocide of Muslims and Sikhs and the lynching of Dalits? The country of dollar billionaires? Or the one in which 800 million live on less than half-a-dollar a day? Which India?"”

“For me, on every project, I realize that I've boxed myself into a corner, or that the play necessitates some sort of theatrical convention that I realize I hate while I'm making it. So then the next play is always a rebellion. Or like, the thing I didn't even realize I was doing last time I will make sure I don't do this time. But there's always some other blind spot. And then that blind spot inspires the play that comes after.”