A government or a party gets the people it deserves and sooner or later a people gets the government it deserves.
Frantz FanonRead
What I call middle-class society is any society that becomes rigidified in predetermined forms, forbidding all evolution, all gains, all progress, all discovery. I call middle-class a closed society in which life has no taste, in which the air is tainted, in which ideas and men are corrupt. And I think that a man who takes a stand against this death is in a sense a revolutionary.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques a stagnant society that resists change and progress, labeling those who challenge it as revolutionaries.
Frantz Fanon portrays middle-class society as one that is inflexible and oppressive, stifling creativity and growth. He argues that when individuals stand up against such a repressive environment, they embody the spirit of revolution, fighting against the moral and intellectual decay that characterizes a closed society.
Themes
SocietyProgressRevolutionChangeStagnation
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about societal change, this quote can highlight the importance of adaptability over conformity.
More from Frantz Fanon
All quotes →When we revolt it’s not for a particular culture. We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breathe.
Frantz FanonRead
Certain things need to be said if one is to avoid falsifying the problem.
Frantz FanonRead
I want the world to recognize with me the open door of every consciousness
Frantz FanonRead
The gaze that the colonized subject casts at the colonist's sector is a look of lust, a look of envy. Dreams of possession. Every type of possession; of sitting at the colonist's table and sleeping in his bed, preferably with his wife. The colonized man is an envious man.
Frantz FanonRead
Hate demands existence, and he who hates has to show his hate in appropriate actions and behaviors; in a sense, he has to become hate. That is why the Americans have substituted discrimination for lynching.
Frantz FanonRead
Similar quotes
The religious superstitions of women perpetuate their bondage more than all other adverse influences.
Elizabeth Cady StantonRead
Once I found out the secret of the universe. I have forgotten what it was, but I know that the Creator does not take Creation seriously, for I remember that He sat in Space with all His work in front of Him and laughed.
Lord DunsanyRead
The consistent thinker, the consistently moral man, is either a walking mummy or else, if he has not succeeded in stifling all his vitality, a fanatical monomaniac.
Aldous HuxleyRead
What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre which had haunted my midnight pillow.
Mary Wollstonecraft ShelleyRead
I do not understand how you can associate abortion with an idea of hedonism or the good life.
Italo CalvinoRead
Clean undeniable right, clear undeniable might: either of these once ascertained puts an end to battle. All battle is a confused experiment to ascertain one and both of these.
Thomas CarlyleRead