Subversive Quotes - page 2

I do not believe that there is an external element to be disrupted now. The situation is different from the period of the Dadaists. There is nothing to overthrow now, because everything has been co-opted. To be subversive now in the sense of Dadaism would be reactionary, because now it would be the attitude of model students.. (Anselm Kiefer)
Logical rationality is neither subversive nor nonsubversive. It is simply a statement of fact. View quote
Mark Clifton
Truth is a risky proposition. It's the nature of mediocre human beings to believe that lies are necessary, that they serve a purpose, that truth is subversive, that candor is dangerous, that the very scaffold of communal life is supported by lies. View quote
Anne Rice
When groups like ISIL seek to rally our young people to their poisonous cause, it can offer them a sense of belonging that they can lack here at home, leaving them more susceptible to radicalisation and even violence against other British people to whom they feel no real allegiance. ... This is what we face – a radical ideology – that is not just subversive, but can seem exciting; one that has often sucked people in from non-violence to violence; one that is overpowering moderate voices within the debate and one which can gain traction because of issues of identity and failures of integration. View quote
David Cameron
It was as if he grew his hair long and smoked cigarettes because he liked to, not because he liked being seen to. This was dangerously subversive. View quote
Stephen Fry
The only subversive mind is the one that questions the obligation to exist; all the others, the anarchist at the top of the list, compromise with the established order. View quote
Emil Cioran
Yossarian - the very sight of the name made him shudder. There were so many esses in it. It just had to be subversive. It was like the word subversive itself. It was like seditious and insidious too, and like socialist, suspicious, fascist and Communist. View quote
Joseph Heller
Writers are not, by nature, respectable: their function is to be subversive. View quote
Anthony Burgess
People think there's some real subversive thing playing against whoever it is; a lot of it is just people who want to go along and get along. And they also want to make money. And the bottom line is, they're going to put out as much stuff as they can - stupid, banal stuff that makes money. View quote
Lily Tomlin
When we patch things up, They say a job well done. But when we ask the question why Where did the rips come from?, They say we are subversive, And extreme, of course. We are just trying to track a problem to its source. View quote
Ani DiFranco
Sir Hugh Greene is the man I hold most responsible for the state of our country today. For 11 years hardly a week went by without a sniping reference to me. And he gave access to anyone who was prepared to say anything morally subversive. (Mary Whitehouse)
One of the most subversive institutions in the United States is the public library. View quote
Bell hooks
For all his derogation, he truly believed in the modern, as subversive of established values, a mine or fuse laid under the terrain of the virtuous; the words, modern, secular, experimental, were drawled out by him in a seductive, blandishing tone, like a veiled erotic invitation. View quote
Mary McCarthy
Granted, there are times when, for business reasons, you do something that's more mainstream. But even then, I try to find something that has a dark or subversive aspect. View quote
Ryan Phillippe
Rest and laughter are the most spiritual and subversive acts of all. Laugh, rest, slow down. View quote
Anne Lamott
There must be renewed recognition that societies are kept stable and healthy by reform, not by thought police; this means there must be free play for so-called subversive ideas - every idea subverts the old to make way for the new. To shut off subversion is to shut off peaceful progress and to invite revolution and war. View quote
I. F. Stone
Maybe there is no better novel in the world than Denton Welch's In Youth Is Pleasure. Just holding it in my hands, so precious, so beyond gay, so deliciously subversive, is enough to make illiteracy a worse social crime than hunger. View quote
John Waters
It has now become the doctrine of a large clan of politicians that political honesty is unnecessary, slow, subversive of a man's interests, and incompatible with quick onward movement. View quote
Anthony Trollope
Evangelical proclamation was essentially subversive. Put in danger by it, the forces of the social body have replied by integrating this power of negation, of challenge, by absorbing it. View quote
Jacques Ellul
Gordon and his friends had quite an exciting time with their 'subversive ideas'. For a whole year they ran an unofficial monthly paper called the Bolshevik, duplicated with jellygraph. It advocated Socialism, free love, the dismemberment of the British Empire, the abolition of the Army and Navy, and so on and so forth. It was great fun. Every intelligent boy of sixteen is a Socialist. At that age one does not see the hook sticking out of the rather stodgy bait. View quote
George Orwell
Whatever is funny is subversive, every joke is ultimately a custard pie... a dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion. (George Orwell)
Well! A general invasion: Hamlet rears his hideous head, Othello is preparing his dagger, that essentially murderous weapon, subversive of all good theatrical government. What more, who knows.. .King Lear is to tear his eyes before a French audience. It should be a point of dignity for the Academy to declare that all imports of this kind are incompatible with public morals. Farewell good taste! In any case, equip yourself with a stout coat of mail under your evening dress. Beware of the Classicist's daggers, or rather, sacrifice yourself valiantly for our barbarian pleasure.. View quote
Eugène Delacroix
Indian spirituality, proclaimed that the true Godhead was beyond number and count; that it had many manifestations which did not exclude or repel each other but included each other, and went together in friendship; that it was approached in different ways and through many symbols; that it resided in the hearts of its devotees. Here there were no chosen people, no exclusive prophethoods, no privileged churches and fraternities and ummas. The message was subversive of all religions based on exclusive claims. View quote
Ram Swarup
Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, Thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought is great and swift and free. View quote
Bertrand Russell
I enjoy working in a quiet and subversive way. View quote
Andy Goldsworthy