Revolution and rebellion - Quotes from Science Fiction

A lot of quotations carefully collected from a very big amount of books and divided by categories.

Have fun reading it, this is really interesting and breathtaking!

Two dead, dark stars collide with an inaudible, deafening crash and light a new star; this is revolution. A molecule breaks away from its orbit and, bursting into a neighboring atomic universe, gives birth to a new chemical element; this is revolution. Lobachevsky cracks the walls of the millenniaold Euclidean world with a single book, opening a path to innumerable non-Euclidean spaces; this is revolution. Revolution is everywhere, in everything. It is infinite. There is no final revolution, no final number. The social revolution is only one of an infinite number of numbers; the law of revolution is not a social law, but an immeasurably greater one. It is a cosmic, universal law - like the laws of the conservation of energy and of the dissipation of energy (entropy)

- Yevgeny Zamiatin, ''On Literature, Revolution, Entropy, and Other Matters'' (1923), translated by Mirra Ginsburg (1970)

No revolution, no heresy is comfortable or easy. For it is a leap, it is a break in the smooth evolutionary curve, and a break is a wound, a pain. But the wound is necessary; most of mankind suffers from hereditary sleeping sickness, and victims of this sickness (entropy) must not be allowed to sleep, or it will be their final sleep, death.

- Yevgeny Zamiatin, ''On Literature, Revolution, Entropy, and Other Matters'' (1923), translated by Mirra Ginsburg (1970)

The art of war is simplicity itself compared with the art of revolution.War follows well-defined principles, and analogies may be traced down through the centuries, whether the fighting is done with pilum and ballista, or with rocket and disintegrator; but each revolution is a law unto itself, a freak, a monstrosity, whose conditions may not be repeated.

- Robert A. Heinlein, '' 'If This Goes On - ''' (1940)

Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.

- George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)

Everything ought to be turned upside down occasionally; it lets in air and light.

- Robert A. Heinlein, The Star Beast (1954)

''Repent, Harlequin!'' said the Ticktockman. ''Get stuffed!'' the Harlequin replied, sneering.

- Harlan Ellison, '''Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman'' (1965)

Revolutions are not won by enlisting the masses. Revolution is a science only a few are competent to practice. It depends on correct organization and, above all, on communications.

- Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966)

Riots are the opium of the people.

- Philip Josй Farmer, ''Riders of the PurpleWage'' (1967)

We intend to destroy the police machine and all its records.We intend to destroy all dogmatic verbal systems. The family unit and its cancerous expansion into tribes, countries, nations we will eradicate at its vegetable roots.We don't want to hear any more family talk, mother talk, father talk, cop talk, priest talk, country talk or party talk. To put it country simple we have heard enough bullshit.

- William S. Burroughs, TheWild Boys: A Book of the Dead (1971)

The teeners had told him that all rules were evil, that all customs were neurotic repetition, that fear was a restriction, that practicality was a restriction, and mercy was a restriction. He told himself they were children, in a passing phase of rebellion.

- Katherine MacLean, ''The Missing Man'' (1971)

You cannot buy the Revolution. You cannot make the Revolution. You can only be the Revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.

- Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia (1974)

Only the individual, the person, had the power of moral choice - the power of change, the essential function of life. The Odonian society was conceived as a permanent revolution, and revolution begins in the thinking mind.

- Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia (1974)

Revolutions begin in the universities; the streets breed only riots.

- George Turner, Drowning Towers (1987)

Enthusiastic soldiers with no fighting to do soon get bored and start thinking dangerous thoughts, like how much better they could run the country.

- Terry Pratchett, Pyramids (1989)

Don't put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That's why they're called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes.

- Terry Pratchett, Night Watch (2002)