Rebellion — Philosophical Quotes
Camus drew a line: the moment you say "no" to injustice, you affirm something worth defending. That act of refusal was, for him, the foundation of human dignity. Nietzsche's rebellion was against inherited values. Lorde's was against silence. Fanon's was against an empire. The forms differ. The impulse is the same: a refusal to accept that the way things are is the way they have to be.
Voices
Albert Camus, Friedrich Nietzsche, James Joyce, Thomas Mann, James Baldwin, Frantz Fanon, Herbert Marcuse, Audre Lorde, Günter Grass, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, Václav Havel, Rollo May, Kurt Vonnegut, Fyodor Dostoevsky
Related Concepts
freedom, agency, absurd, praxis
Quotes (27)
- “I rebel; therefore we exist.” — Albert Camus, The Rebel
- “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free tha...” — Albert Camus, The Rebel
- “One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
- “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols
- “I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it calls itself m...” — James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
- “Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil.” — Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain
- “The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.” — James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
- “Each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfil...” — Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth
- “What matters is not to know the world but to change it.” — Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks
- “The criterion for free choice can never be an absolute one, but neither is it...” — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man
- “Surplus repression is the restrictions necessitated by social domination. Thi...” — Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization
- “The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.” — Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider
- “Even bad books are books and therefore sacred.” — Günter Grass, The Tin Drum
- “He who destroys a good book kills reason itself.” — Günter Grass, The Tin Drum
- “Art is uncompromising and life is full of compromises.” — Günter Grass, Cat and Mouse
- “The job of a citizen is to keep his mouth open.” — Günter Grass, Dog Years
- “What is a rebel? A man who says no, but whose refusal does not imply a renunc...” — Albert Camus, The Rebel
- “Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt th...” — Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own
- “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” — George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
- “If the main pillar of the system is living a lie, then it is not surprising t...” — Václav Havel, The Power of the Powerless
- “What is a rebel? A man who says no, but whose refusal does not imply a renunc...” — Albert Camus, The Rebel
- “Every human being must have a point at which he stands against the culture, w...” — Rollo May, Man's Search for Himself
- “True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school clas...” — Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country
- “When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, t...” — Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals
- “Your silence will not protect you.” — Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider
- “Men are never really willing to die except for the sake of freedom: therefore...” — Albert Camus, The Rebel
- “To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's.” — Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment