If honesty did not exist, we ought to invent it as the best means of getting rich.
Honore Gabriel Riqueti, Comte De MirabeauRead
When one meddles with the direction of a revolution, the problem is not how to make it go but how to keep it under control.
Interpretation
Revolutions require careful management to maintain their intended direction and prevent chaos.
This quote suggests that when influencing or participating in a revolution, the key challenge is not merely to ignite or initiate change, but to ensure that the transformation remains stable and controlled. It highlights the complexities and responsibilities that come with being involved in significant societal shifts, emphasizing the need for foresight and guidance in tumultuous times.
In practice
In a speech about political activism, one can use this quote to emphasize the need for careful planning.
If honesty did not exist, we ought to invent it as the best means of getting rich.
While she cut the mushrooms, she cried more than she had at the grave, the most so far, because she found the saddest thing of all to be the simple truth of her capacity to move on.
When Superstorm Sandy churned up fourteen-foot walls of water that slammed New York's coastal communities in October 2012, they also washed away any false notions we had that we care sufficiently for poor people.
Like the other great revolutions, an environmental revolution will require sacrifices and lead to enormous gains. It, too, will change the face of the land and human institutions, hierarchies, self-definitions, cultures. It will take centuries. If it happens. There is no guarantee, of course.
You gotta make a change. Its time for us as a people to start making some changes, lets change the way we eat, lets change the way we live, and lets change the way we treat each other. You see the old way wasn't working so its on us, to do what we gotta do to survive.
The first snow always startles. It covers the tricycle in the driveway, turning its frame into an abstact sculpture that says: See how quickly yesterday turns into today.
The dynamic of revolutionary events is directly determined by swift, intense, and passionate changes in the psychology of classes which have already formed themselves before the revolution.
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