If you have the guts to be yourself, other people'll pay your price.
John UpdikeRead
Revolution is just one crowd taking power from another.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Revolution signifies a shift in power dynamics, where one group overthrows another to take control.
John Updike's quote highlights the essence of revolution as a transfer of power, emphasizing that it often involves masses overthrowing a ruling entity. It suggests that revolutions are not inherently about the quest for justice or ideals but rather about who holds authority and who does not, thus framing political change in terms of social and power structures.
Themes
RevolutionPowerChangeAuthorityPolitics
In practice
Example use cases
Discussing political history in a classroom setting.
More from John Updike
All quotes βDost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of. _x000D_ _x000D_ Suspect each moment, for it is a thief, tiptoeing away with more than it brings.
John UpdikeRead
Museums and bookstores should feel, I think, like vacant lots - places where the demands on us are our own demands, where the spirit can find exercise in unsupervised play.
John UpdikeRead
But it is just two lovers, holding hands and in a hurry to reach their car, their locked hands a starfish leaping through the dark.
John UpdikeRead
The reader knows the writer better than he knows himself; but the writer's physical presence is light from a star that has moved on.
John UpdikeRead
To guarantee the individual maximum freedom within a social frame of minimal laws ensures - if not happiness - its hopeful pursuit.
John UpdikeRead
Similar quotes
When we, as a nation, put our minds to something, when we truly choose to care about something, change always happens.
Megan RapinoeRead
Is the rich world aware of how four billion of the six billion live? If we were aware, we would want to help out, we'd want to get involved.
Bill GatesRead
I do not like the world as it is; so I am trying to make it a little more as I want it.
Helen KellerRead
Everything is an experiment until it has a deadline. That gives it a destination, context, and a reason.
Brian EnoRead
There was never a time you could get the majority of people in Alabama or Mississippi, or even southern Delaware, to vote to end segregation. What changed things was the rule of law, the courts. Brown v. Board of Education was ushered in by a movement, but it was a legal decision.
Bryan StevensonRead
Since my residence at Tippecanoe, we have endeavored to level all distinctions, to destroy village chiefs, by whom all mischiefs are done. It is they who sell the land to the Americans.
TecumsehRead