Revolution Inspirational Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Revolution Inspirational. Here they are! All 100 of them:

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The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first.
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Jim Morrison
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If you want to rebel, rebel from inside the system.That's much more powerful than rebelling outside the system.
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Marie Lu (Legend (Legend, #1))
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People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take.
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Emma Goldman
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Societies in decline have no use for visionaries.
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AnaΓ―s Nin
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Don't blow off another's candle for it won't make yours shine brighter.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu (The Prince and the Pauper)
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A Nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but it's lowest ones
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Nelson Mandela (Long Walk to Freedom)
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[BURR] I am the one thing in life I can control.
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Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton: The Revolution)
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The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?
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Dorothy Day
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Don't set your goals by what other people deem important.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu (The Prince and the Pauper)
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I want to be justice, love and the wrath of God all in one.
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Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood (Persepolis, #1))
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One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. Today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change.
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Martin Luther King Jr.
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A great human revolution in just a single individual will help achieve a change in the destiny of a nation and, further, can even enable a change in the destiny of all humankind.
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Daisaku Ikeda (The Human Revolution (The Human Revolution, #1-12))
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Dying is easy, young man. Living is harder
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Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton: The Revolution)
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HASTA LA VICTORIA SIEMPRE
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Ernesto Che Guevara (Che Guevara Speaks: Selected Speeches and Writings)
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The only way to support a revolution is to make your own.
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Abbie Hoffman
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And I think that's what our world is desperately in need of - lovers, people who are building deep, genuine relationships with fellow strugglers along the way, and who actually know the faces of the people behind the issues they are concerned about.
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Shane Claiborne (The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical)
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DO ANYTHING! SOMETHING! Because you start a revolution one decision at a time, with every breath you take.
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Matthew Quick (Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock)
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Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over, this is recognised: that the human race has been harshly treated, but that it has advanced.
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Victor Hugo (Les MisΓ©rables)
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Ethical veganism results in a profound revolution within the individual; a complete rejection of the paradigm of oppression and violence that she has been taught from childhood to accept as the natural order. It changes her life and the lives of those with whom she shares this vision of nonviolence. Ethical veganism is anything but passive; on the contrary, it is the active refusal to cooperate with injustice
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Gary L. Francione
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Be a King. Dare to be Different, dare to manifest your greatness.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu (The Prince and the Pauper)
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A confident woman wears a smile and has this air of comfortability and pleasantness about her.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu
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A revolution is coming – a revolution which will be peaceful if we are wise enough; compassionate if we care enough; successful if we are fortunate enough – but a revolution which is coming whether we will it or not. We can affect its character; we cannot alter its inevitability. [Report to the United States Senate on his trip to Latin America and the Alliance for Progress, May 9-10 1966]
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Robert F. Kennedy
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Stupid people go to college but"smart people own them"....
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Chetan Bhagat (Revolution 2020: Love, Corruption, Ambition)
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Men love women who are courageous for it means they can go all the way with him in his pursuit of his good dreams and intentions.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu
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Love isn't about what we did yesterday; it's about what we do today and tomorrow and the day after
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Grace Lee Boggs (The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century)
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Don't die without fulfilling your purpose.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu (The Prince and the Pauper)
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Let the revolution begin.
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Ron Paul (The Revolution: A Manifesto)
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The challenge remains. On the other side are formidable forces: money, political power, the major media. On our side are the people of the world and a power greater than money or weapons: the truth. Truth has a power of its own. Art has a power of its own. That age-old lesson – that everything we do matters – is the meaning of the people’s struggle here in the United States and everywhere. A poem can inspire a movement. A pamphlet can spark a revolution. Civil disobedience can arouse people and provoke us to think, when we organize with one another, when we get involved, when we stand up and speak out together, we can create a power no government can suppress. We live in a beautiful country. But people who have no respect for human life, freedom, or justice have taken it over. It is now up to all of us to take it back.
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Howard Zinn (A Power Governments Cannot Suppress)
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Alcohol makes other people less tedious, and food less bland, and can help provide what the Greeks called entheos, or the slight buzz of inspiration when reading or writing. The only worthwhile miracle in the New Testamentβ€”the transmutation of water into wine during the wedding at Canaβ€”is a tribute to the persistence of Hellenism in an otherwise austere Judaea. The same applies to the seder at Passover, which is obviously modeled on the Platonic symposium: questions are asked (especially of the young) while wine is circulated. No better form of sodality has ever been devised: at Oxford one was positively expected to take wine during tutorials. The tongue must be untied. It's not a coincidence that Omar Khayyam, rebuking and ridiculing the stone-faced Iranian mullahs of his time, pointed to the value of the grape as a mockery of their joyless and sterile regime. Visiting today's Iran, I was delighted to find that citizens made a point of defying the clerical ban on booze, keeping it in their homes for visitors even if they didn't particularly take to it themselves, and bootlegging it with great brio and ingenuity. These small revolutions affirm the human.
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Christopher Hitchens (Hitch 22: A Memoir)
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They want us to be afraid. They want us to be afraid of leaving our homes. They want us to barricade our doors and hide our children. Their aim is to make us fear life itself! They want us to hate. They want us to hate 'the other'. They want us to practice aggression and perfect antagonism. Their aim is to divide us all! They want us to be inhuman. They want us to throw out our kindness. They want us to bury our love and burn our hope. Their aim is to take all our light! They think their bricked walls will separate us. They think their damned bombs will defeat us. They are so ignorant they don’t understand that my soul and your soul are old friends. They are so ignorant they don’t understand that when they cut you I bleed. They are so ignorant they don’t understand that we will never be afraid, we will never hate and we will never be silent for life is ours!
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Kamand Kojouri
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The true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations which we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us, and which knows only the oppressors' tactics, the oppressors' relationships.
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Audre Lorde (Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches)
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God is never tired of bringing the sun out every morning, taking it in the evenings and bringing out the moon.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu (The Prince and the Pauper)
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Dare to be different. Represent your maker well and you will forever abide in the beautiful embrace of his loving arms.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu (The Prince and the Pauper)
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The beauty of this idea is that my decision to keep Peeta alive at the expense of my own life is itself an act of defiance. A refusal to play the Hunger Games by the Capitol's rules. My private agenda dovetails completely with my public one. And if I really could save Peeta... in terms of a revolution, this would be ideal. Because I will be more valuable dead. They can turn me into some kind of martyr for the cause and paint my face on banners, and it will do more to rally people than anything I could do if I was living. But Peeta would be more valuable alive, and tragic, because he will be able to turn his pain into words that will transform people.
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Suzanne Collins (Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2))
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Relegated as he was to a corner and as though sheltered behind the billiard table, the soldiers, their eyes fixed upon Enjolras, had not even noticed Grantaire, and the sergeant was preparing to repeat the order: 'Take aim!' when suddenly they heard a powerful voice cry out beside them, 'Vive la Republique! Count me in.' Grantaire was on his feet. The immense glare of the whole combat he had missed and in which he had not been, appeared in the flashing eyes of the transfigured drunkard. He repeated, 'Vive la Republique!' crossed the room firmly, and took his place in front of the muskets beside Enjolras. 'Two at one shot,' he said. And, turning toward Enjolras gently, he said to him, 'Will you permit it?' Enjolras shook his hand with a smile. The smile had not finished before the report was heard. Enjolras, pierced by eight bullets, remained backed up against the wall is if the bullets had nailed him there. Except that his head was tilted. Grantaire, struck down, collapsed at his feet.
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Victor Hugo (Les MisΓ©rables)
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A conscience is easier to swallow on an empty belly, simpler to swing with a broken wrist
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Jay Kristoff (Stormdancer (The Lotus Wars, #1))
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Your words are powerful so what you say goes a long way to either establish or destroy you; this is why you should say things that God has said concerning you, not things that situations or circumstances say.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu (The Prince and the Pauper)
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An average man is egoistic, proud and has strong self esteem. They always require partners who massage their ego not those who will drag their ego to the mud.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu
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Don't call yourself discouraged anymore;it's no longer your name.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu (The Prince and the Pauper)
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An intelligent woman is a goldmine! She has the ability to learn, reason and understand things better and faster than her contemporaries. She is competent, alert and can reason out stuffs easily.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu
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No single man makes history. History cannot be seen, just as one cannot see grass growing. Wars and revolutions, kings and Robespierres, are history's organic agents, its yeast. But revolutions are made by fanatical men of action with one-track mind, geniuses in their ability to confine themselves to a limited field. They overturn the old order in a few hours or days, the whole upheaval takes a few weeks or at most years, but the fanatical spirit that inspired the upheavals is worshiped for decades thereafter, for centuries.
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Boris Pasternak (Doctor Zhivago)
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words do matter. They’re not pointless. If they were pointless then they couldn’t start revolutions and they wouldn’t change history and they wouldn’t be the things that you think about every night before you go to sleep. If they were just words we wouldn’t listen to songs,
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Cath Crowley (Words in Deep Blue)
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Don't let any situation intimidate you anymore, don't accept defeat anymore.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu (The Prince and the Pauper)
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Every day has the potential to be the greatest day of your life.
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Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton: The Revolution)
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4. Religion. Your reason is now mature enough to examine this object. In the first place, divest yourself of all bias in favor of novelty & singularity of opinion... shake off all the fears & servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. You will naturally examine first, the religion of your own country. Read the Bible, then as you would read Livy or Tacitus. The facts which are within the ordinary course of nature, you will believe on the authority of the writer, as you do those of the same kind in Livy and Tacitus. The testimony of the writer weighs in their favor, in one scale, and their not being against the laws of nature, does not weigh against them. But those facts in the Bible which contradict the laws of nature, must be examined with more care, and under a variety of faces. Here you must recur to the pretensions of the writer to inspiration from God. Examine upon what evidence his pretensions are founded, and whether that evidence is so strong, as that its falsehood would be more improbable than a change in the laws of nature, in the case he relates. For example in the book of Joshua we are told the sun stood still several hours. Were we to read that fact in Livy or Tacitus we should class it with their showers of blood, speaking of statues, beasts, &c. But it is said that the writer of that book was inspired. Examine therefore candidly what evidence there is of his having been inspired. The pretension is entitled to your inquiry, because millions believe it. On the other hand you are astronomer enough to know how contrary it is to the law of nature that a body revolving on its axis as the earth does, should have stopped, should not by that sudden stoppage have prostrated animals, trees, buildings, and should after a certain time have resumed its revolution, & that without a second general prostration. Is this arrest of the earth's motion, or the evidence which affirms it, most within the law of probabilities? You will next read the New Testament. It is the history of a personage called Jesus. Keep in your eye the opposite pretensions: 1, of those who say he was begotten by God, born of a virgin, suspended & reversed the laws of nature at will, & ascended bodily into heaven; and 2, of those who say he was a man of illegitimate birth, of a benevolent heart, enthusiastic mind, who set out without pretensions to divinity, ended in believing them, and was punished capitally for sedition, by being gibbeted, according to the Roman law, which punished the first commission of that offence by whipping, & the second by exile, or death in fureΓ’. ...Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you... In fine, I repeat, you must lay aside all prejudice on both sides, and neither believe nor reject anything, because any other persons, or description of persons, have rejected or believed it... I forgot to observe, when speaking of the New Testament, that you should read all the histories of Christ, as well of those whom a council of ecclesiastics have decided for us, to be Pseudo-evangelists, as those they named Evangelists. Because these Pseudo-evangelists pretended to inspiration, as much as the others, and you are to judge their pretensions by your own reason, and not by the reason of those ecclesiastics. Most of these are lost... [Letter to his nephew, Peter Carr, advising him in matters of religion, 1787]
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Thomas Jefferson (Letters of Thomas Jefferson)
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On opening night, standing under the Rogers's marquee, [Lin] realized that if Eliza's struggle was the element of Hamilton's story that had inspired him the most, then the show itself was a part of her legacy.
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Jeremy McCarter (Hamilton: The Revolution)
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Don't just float through life; don't just agree to anything and everything, have a course you are known for at all times.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu
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You can change any status quo, stand out, walk by faith and not by sight and things will definitely go well with you.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu
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The greenest of pastures are right here on earth.
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Jennifer Donnelly (Revolution)
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A confident woman knows her worth and so doesn’t fret when her man is highly placed or is often found amidst other women in the course of his business or assignment.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu
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Patience is a virtue not a vice.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu
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Dominate in your domain; You can do it.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu (The Prince and the Pauper)
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Don't say negative things about your spouse and children.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu (The Prince and the Pauper)
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A farmer is a magician who produces money from the mud.
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Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
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Your life does matter. It always matters whether you reach out in friendship or lash out in anger. It always matters whether you live with compassion and awareness or whether you succumb to distractions and trivia. It always matters how you treat other people, how you treat animals, and how you treat yourself. It always matters what you do. It always matters what you say. And it always matters what you eat.
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John Robbins (The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and Our World)
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Weigh whatever you are about to say; what will it do to your hearer - encouragement, edification, disappointment or fear? What will it do to your life - glorify, edify, beautify or weigh you down? Speak well and things will go well.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu (The Prince and the Pauper)
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You are not permitted to suffer what others suffer, you are not permitted to fail or die young.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu (The Prince and the Pauper)
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When we are connected to the source, we will not be afraid of any task set before us.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu (The Prince and the Pauper)
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Accept responsibilities for all your actions. Learn from your past and your mistakes.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu
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You recreate your world to your taste with God's Word in your mouth.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu (The Prince and the Pauper)
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…time has a way of leading a person along a crooked path. Sometimes the path is hard to hold to and people fall off along the way. They curse the road for its steep grades and muddy ruts and settle themselves in hinterlands of thorn and sorrow, never knowing or dreaming that the road meant all along to lead them home. Some call that road a tragedy and lose themselves along it. Others, those that see it home, call it an adventure.
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A.S. Peterson (The Fiddler's Gun (Fin's Revolution, #1))
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The Earth was singing her revolution. She was calling her brave men and women to her defense.
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Rivera Sun (Steam Drills, Treadmills and Shooting Stars - a story of our times -)
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The revolution has no leader, I said. It was more like a raging wild horse that would buck anyone who tried to mount it against its will.
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Wael Ghonim (Revolution 2.0: The Power of the People Is Greater Than the People in Power: A Memoir)
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God rewards every act of obedience to His Will.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu (The Prince and the Pauper)
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I want the key", he said. "The key to the universe. To life. To the future and the past. To love and hate. Truth. God. It's there. Inside of us. In the genome. The answer to every question. If I can find it. That's what I want," he finished, softly. "I want the key.
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Jennifer Donnelly (Revolution)
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When a man finds this kind of woman, he will go all out for her knowing that she will not be a letdown.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu
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Humanity has won its battle. Liberty now has a country.
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Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert Du Motier
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I wish I wasn't an imperial highness or an ex-grand duchess. I'm sick of people doing things to me because of what I am. Girl-in-white-dress. Short-one-with-fringe. Daughter-of-the-tsar. Child-of-the-ex-tyrant. I want people to look and see me, Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, not the caboose on a train of grand duchesses. Someday, I promise myself, no one will be able to hear my name or look at my picture and suppose they know all about me. Someday I will do something bigger than what I am.
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Sarah Miller (The Lost Crown)
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A woman that is patient has the ability to endure provocation, pain, annoyance etc, with much calm and strength.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu
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You may not attain the highest height with one leap but my dear; you will reach your destination.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu (The Prince and the Pauper)
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People have within their own hands the tools to fashion their own destiny.
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Murray D. Lincoln (Vice President in Charge of Revolution)
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These things will change, can you feel it now? These walls that they put up to hold us back will fall down. This revolution, the time will come for us to finally win. And we'll sing hallelujah!
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Taylor Swift
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Your mouth is not given to you for feeding alone; it is given to you to programme events and circumstance around you.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu (The Prince and the Pauper)
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Were revolutions ever really that we thought them to be?
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Rebecca Solnit (Men Explain Things to Me)
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A responsible woman is one who sees opportunities of service and responds to them quickly. In her dwells the ability to see and respond to opportunities.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu
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Worship is the marriage of two Spirits - the Spirit of God and the Spirit of man.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu
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Create your world with God's Word in your mouth just say it and it will be accomplished!
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu (The Prince and the Pauper)
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Your status has changed. Your Name is changed! You are a new creation.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu (The Prince and the Pauper)
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Your decision not to join the crowd may be what God is waiting for to grant you revelation on how to deliver your family, your country, business, profession or even your church!
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu (The Prince and the Pauper)
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The presence of God is so important in the life of believers. There is abundance of all you need to make your life comfortable in His presence.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu (The Prince and the Pauper)
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Each and every Indian, man or woman, child or Elder, is a spirit-warrior.
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Leonard Peltier
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Drown those degrading thoughts.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu
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Desire to give and not always receive.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu
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Revolution is the sound of your heart still beating. and as long as it is, you have work to do. Do it. Without apology. Do it. Bravely and nobly. Do it. Exist, insist, and by all means, resist.
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Dominique Christina
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Our challenge, as we enter the new millennium, is to deepen the commonalities and the bonds between these tens of millions, while at the same time continuing to address the issues within our local communities by two-sided struggles that not only say "No" to the existing power structure but also empower our constituencies to embrace the power within each of us to crease the world anew.
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Grace Lee Boggs (The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century)
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Ψ«Ω… ΩŠΩ†Ψ²Ω„ ΨΉΩ„ΩŠΩ‡ Ψ§Ω„Ω„ΩŠΩ„ فΨͺΨͺΨ±Ψ§Ψ‘Ω‰ Ω„Ω‡ حبيباΨͺΩ‡ فى Ψ§Ω„Ω†Ψ¬ΩˆΩ… ,Ψ§Ω„Ψ£ΩˆΩ„Ω‰ Ψ§ΨΊΨͺΨ΅Ψ¨Ω‡Ψ§ Ψ§Ω„Ψ₯Ω†Ψ¬Ω„ΩŠΨ² ,Ψ§Ω„Ψ«Ψ§Ω†ΩŠΨ© ΨͺزوجΨͺ Ω…Ω„ΩƒΨ§Ω‹ و Ψ§Ω„Ψ«Ψ§Ω„Ψ«Ψ© زفΨͺ نفسها Ω„Ω…Ψ³ΩŠΨ­ فى Ψ§Ω„Ψ³Ω…Ψ§Ψ‘!
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Ψ£Ψ­Ω…Ψ― Ω…Ψ±Ψ§Ψ― (1919)
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Every person has a revolution beating within his or her chest
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Adam Braun (The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change)
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So cheer up Beloved; for your God is able, He is the maker of all things.
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu (The Prince and the Pauper)
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They took my books because my message was love. They took my pen because my words were love. Then they took my voice because my song was love. Soon they’ll take myself so nothing remains. But they don’t know that when I'm gone my love will stay.
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Kamand Kojouri
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remember when God has answered you, it no longer matters who has been against you but for Him to answer you and change your story, you have to make up your mind to disobey the wrong order, change the status quo and BE DIFFERENT!
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Jaachynma N.E. Agu
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We stand for organized terror - this should be frankly admitted. Terror is an absolute necessity during times of revolution. Our aim is to fight against the enemies of the Soviet Government and of the new order of life. We judge quickly. In most cases only a day passes between the apprehension of the criminal and his sentence. When confronted with evidence criminals in almost every case confess; and what argument can have greater weight than a criminal's own confession?
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Felix Dzerzhinsky
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The Bush administration came to office promising to revitalize the Reagan Revolutionβ€”which had inspired me to get into politics in the first place. Instead, it took the Republican Party down the path of bigger government, excessive spending, and new entitlement programs that we couldn’t afford.
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Ted Cruz (A Time for Truth: Reigniting the Promise of America)
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Theirs is the customary human reaction when confronted with innovation: to flounder about attempting to adapt old responses to new situations or to simply condemn or ignore the harbingers of change--a practice refined by the Chinese emperors, who used to execute messengers bringing bad news. The new technological environments generate the most pain among those least prepared to alter their old value structures. The literati find the new electronic environment far more threatening than do those less committed to literacy as a way of life. When an individual or social group feels that its whole identity is jeopardized by social or psychic change, its natural reaction is to lash out in defensive fury. But for all their lamentations, the revolution has already taken place.
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Marshall McLuhan
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Serving [Hamilton's] legacy didn't just mean commemorating him, though: It also meant continuing his work. [Eliza] crusaded against slavery, as Hamilton had. And this widow of an orphan helped to found the first private orphanage in New York. That's the real power of a legacy: We tell stories of people who are gone because like any powerful stories, they have the potential to inspire, and to change the world.
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Jeremy McCarter (Hamilton: The Revolution)
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When calling for authenticity, we need to take seriously the brokenness and sinfulness of the human heart. If to be authentic means to be who we really are or to express what we really feel, then in most cases I’m going to vote for hypocrisy. Our prisons are filled with men and women who acted on their feelings and impulses. If authenticity is about being true to yourself, these individuals should be our models of inspiration.
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Erwin Raphael McManus (Uprising: A Revolution of the Soul)
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It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in,β€”glittering like the morning-star, full of life, and splendor, and joy. Oh! what a revolution! and what a heart must I have, to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream that, when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult.β€”But the age of chivalry is gone.β€”That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. Never, never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness.
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Edmund Burke (Reflections on the Revolution in France)
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Right now, we are in a peak cycle. There’s tremendous energy out there, directed against the state. It’s not all focused, but it’s there, and it’s building. Maybe this will be sufficient to accomplish what we must accomplish over the fairly short run. We’ll see, and we can certainly hope that this is the case. But perhaps not. We must be prepared to wage a long struggle. If this is the case then we’ll probably see a different cycle, one in which the revolutionary energy of the people seems to have dispersed, run out of steam. But – and this is important- such cycles are deceptive. Things appear to be at low ebb, but actually what’s happening is a period of regroupment, a period in which we step back and learn from the mistakes made during the preceding cycle.
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George L. Jackson
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The primary leaders of the so-called founding fathers of our nation were not Bible-believing Christians; they were deists. Deism was a philosophical belief that was widely accepted by the colonial intelligentsia at the time of the American Revolution. Its major tenets included belief in human reason as a reliable means of solving social and political problems and belief in a supreme deity who created the universe to operate solely by natural laws. The supreme God of the Deists removed himself entirely from the universe after creating it. They believed that he assumed no control over it, exerted no influence on natural phenomena, and gave no supernatural revelation to man. A necessary consequence of these beliefs was a rejection of many doctrines central to the Christian religion. Deists did not believe in the virgin birth, divinity, or resurrection of Jesus, the efficacy of prayer, the miracles of the Bible, or even the divine inspiration of the Bible. These beliefs were forcefully articulated by Thomas Paine in Age of Reason, a book that so outraged his contemporaries that he died rejected and despised by the nation that had once revered him as 'the father of the American Revolution.'... Other important founding fathers who espoused Deism were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Ethan Allen, James Madison, and James Monroe. [The Christian Nation Myth, 1999]
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Farrell Till
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What had I intuited at last? Namely this: while nothing is more precious than independence and freedom, nothing is also more precious than independence and freedom! These two slogans are almost the same, but not quite. The first inspiring slogan was Ho Chi Min’s empty suit, which he no longer wore. How could he? He was dead. The second slogan was the tricky one, the joke. It was Uncle Ho’s empty suit turned inside out, a sartorial sensation that only a man of two minds, or a man with no face, dared to wear. This odd suit suited me, for it was of a cutting-edge cut. Wearing this inside-out suit, my seams exposed in an unseemly way, I understood, at last, how our revolution had gone from being the vanguard of political change to the rearguard hoarding power. In this transformation, we were not unusual. Hadn’t the French and the Americans done exactly the same? Once revolutionaries themselves, they had become imperialists, colonizing and occupying our defiant little land, taking away our freedom in the name of saving us. Our revolution took considerably longer than theirs, and was considerably bloodier, but we made up for lost time. When it came to learning the worst habits of our French masters and their American replacements, we quickly proved ourselves the best. We, too, could abuse grand ideals! Having liberated ourselves in the name of independence and freedomβ€”I was so tired of saying these words!β€”we then deprived our defeated brethren of the same.
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Viet Thanh Nguyen (The Sympathizer (The Sympathizer, #1))
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Somehow the realization that nothing was to be hoped for had a salutary effect upon me. For weeks and months, for years, in fact, all my life I had been looking forward to something happening, some intrinsic event that would alter my life, and now suddenly, inspired by the absolute hopelessness of everything, I felt relieved, felt as though a great burden had been lifted from my shoulders. At dawn I parted company with the young Hindu, after touching him for a few francs, enough for a room. Walking toward Montparnasse I decided to let myself drift with the tide, to make not the least resistance to fate, no matter in what form it presented itself. Nothing that had happened to me thus far had been sufficient to destroy me; nothing had been destroyed except my illusions. I myself was intact. The world was intact. Tomorrow there might be a revolution, a plague, an earthquake; tomorrow there might not be left a single soul to whom one could turn for sympathy, for aid, for faith. It seemed to me that the great calamity had already manifested itself, that I could be no more truly alone than at this very moment. I made up my mind that I would hold on to nothing, that I would expect nothing, that henceforth I would live as an animal, a beast of prey, a rover, a plunderer. Even if war were declared, and it were my lot to go, I would grab the bayonet and plunge it, plunge it up to the hilt. And if rape were the order of the day then rape I would, and with a vengeance. At this very moment, in the quiet dawn of a new day, was not the earth giddy with crime and distress? Had one single element of man's nature been altered, vitally, fundamentally altered, by the incessant march of history? By what he calls the better part of his nature, man has been betrayed, that is all. At the extreme limits of his spiritual being man finds himself again naked as a savage. When he finds God, as it were, he has been picked clean: he is a skeleton. One must burrow into life again in order to put on flesh. The word must become flesh; the soul thirsts. On whatever crumb my eye fastens, I will pounce and devour. If to live is the paramount thing, then I will live, even if I must become a cannibal. Heretofore I have been trying to save my precious hide, trying to preserve the few pieces of meat that hid my bones. I am done with that. I have reached the limits of endurance. My back is to the wall; I can retreat no further. As far as history goes I am dead. If there is something beyond I shall have to bounce back. I have found God, but he is insufficient. I am only spiritually dead. Physically I am alive. Morally I am free. The world which I have departed is a menagerie. The dawn is breaking on a new world, a jungle world in which the lean spirits roam with sharp claws. If I am a hyena I am a lean and hungry one: I go forth to fatten myself.
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Henry Miller (Tropic of Cancer (Tropic, #1))