“A political movement must keep in touch with reality and the prevailing conditions. Long speeches, the shaking of fists, the banging of tables, and strongly worded resolutions out of touch with the objective conditions do not bring about mass action and can do a great deal of harm to the organization and the struggle we serve.”
Regretful feeling
Regretful Quotes — page 51 of 169
“From the first time someone says, Who do you think you are? we learn how to repress.”
“I was always unlawful; I broke the law when I was born because my parents weren't married.”
“Avoid teams at all cost. Keep your circle small. Never join a group that has a name.”
“By playing down to the idea of the common man, dogmatic political authority exploits him... So the ideal of innate aristocracy of which hour forefathers dreamed is betrayed for votes in the name of democracy.”
“The gods made the earth for all men t' share. Only when the kings come with their crowns and steel swords, they claimed it was all theirs. "My trees," they said, "you can't eat them apples. My stream, you can't fish here. My wood, you're not t' hunt. My earth, my water, my castle, my daughter, keep your hands away or I'll chop 'em off, but maybe if you kneel t' me I'll let you have a sniff." You call us thieves, but at least a thief has t' be brave and clever and quick. A kneeler only has t' kneel.”
“There is massive propaganda for everyone to consume. Consumption is good for profits and consumption is good for the political establishment.”
“I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe — "That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.”
“I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government”
“I am only human, although I regret it.”
“It's regrets that make painful memories. When I was crazy I did everything just right.”
“If you spend five minutes complaining, you have just wasted five minutes.”
“I just hate to be in one corner. I hate to be put as only a guitar player, or either only as a songwriter, or only as a tap dancer. I like to move around.”
“I'd like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the whole field to private individuals.”
“As long as the state permits itself to interfere in the affairs of literature, literature has the right to interfere with the affairs of state.”
“She stood a moment before my eyes, clearly and painfully, loved and deeply woven into my destiny; then fell away again in a deep oblivion, at a half regretted distance.”
“A society is always eager to cover misdeeds with a cloak of forgetfulness, but no society can fully repress an ugly past when the ravages persist into the present. America owes a debt of justice which it has only begun to pay.”
“In his essay 'Self-Reliance' Emerson wrote, 'Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.' The Apostle Paul reminds us that whoso would be a Christian must also be a a nonconformist. Any Christian who blindly accepts the opinions of the majority and in fear and timidity follows a path of expediency and social approval is a mental and spiritual slave.”
“Men often marry in hasty recklessness and repent afterward all their lives.”
“I want to do something different, really different, and if it alienates people that's too bad.”