Discover the most popular and inspiring quotes and sayings on the topic of Subversiveness. Share them with your friends on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or your personal blogs, and let the world be inspired by their powerful messages. Here are the Top 100 Subversiveness Quotes And Sayings by 91 Authors including Marianne Moore,John Bowlby,Bell Hooks,R. Wolf Baldassarro,James A. Baldwin for you to enjoy and share.
Egotism is usually subversive of sagacity.
The stark nakedness and simplicity of the conflict with which humanity is oppressed - that of getting angry with and wishing to hurt the very person who is most loved.
One of the most subversive institutions in the United States is the public library..
I am a free-willed, free-thinking, non-conforming subversive using the powers of intellect and common sense to not only question my environment but search for answers to those questions in order to share that knowledge with those around me for a better tomorrow.
The greatest significance of the present student generation is that it is through them that the point of view of the subjugated is finally and inexorably being expressed.
It is, at the most basic level, a bundle of contradictions: a desire for power that strips you of all power. A gesture of strength that divests you of all strength.
Even when they call us mad, when they call us subversives and communists and all the epithets they put on us, we know we only preach the subversive witness of the Beatitudes, which have turned everything upside down.
Perversity is the muse of modern literature.
An attack on values is inevitably seen as an act of subversion.
P17 - Critical consciousness, they say, is anarchic.
Restricting too personal, and therefore prejudiced, interpretation leads to revolution - the fusion of an inner and outer reality derived from the wholeness of life - sublimating things seen into things known.
To totalitarianism, an opponent is by definition subversive; democracy treats subversives as mere opponents for fear of betraying its principles.
the fundamentally paradoxical ways that our very subjectivities are constituted: as cultural scripts, as texts written before us as us. It is confusing being a novel, a piece of fiction that considers itself a simple fact.
If sex and creativity are often seen by dictators as subversive activities, it's because they lead to the knowledge that you own your own body (and with it your own voice), and that's the most revolutionary insight of all.
The vanity of shining in conversation is usually subversive of its own desires.
Human kindness is deeply subversive to totalitarian creeds, which seek to thwart all compassion toward those deemed unworthy of moral consideration, those branded as internal or external enemies.
Political opposition ... is given an inhumane overlay, which then justifies the abrogation of all normally applied customs of civilized behavior. A political policy is equated with moral right, and opposition to it with diabolical malevolence.
An admission of extreme otherness,
Originality is independence, not rebellion; it is sincerity, not antagonism.
During the darkest periods in recent history, of course, the most subversive things you could do is think, read if you can get the material and remind yourself that love exists.
Resistances do not derive from a few heterogeneous principles; but neither are they a lure or a promise that is of necessity betrayed. They are the odd term in relations of power; they are inscribed in the latter as an irreducible opposite.
The process in which a writer is compelled to counterfeit his true feelings is exactly the opposite of that which the man of society is compelled to counterfeit his. The artist disguises in order to reveal; the man of society disguises in order to conceal
A revolutionary strives to have a tight grasp on reality without the converse being true.
The characteristic feature of modernity is criticism: what is new is set over and against what is old, and it is this constant contrast that constitutes the continuity of tradition.
Villainy, when detected, never gives up, but boldly adds impudence to imposture.
To rebel or revolt against the status quo is in the very nature of an artist.
In order to create an alternative an oppressed group must at once shatter the self-reflecting world which encircles it and, at the same time, project its own image onto history.
The Internet carries the flag of being subversive and possibly rebellious and chaotic, nihilistic.
The unification of opposites which characterizes the commercial and political style is one of the many ways in which discourse and communication make themselves immune against the expression of protest and refusal.
There are opposing forces in all living things. My work reflects this and stirs up a contrast of emotions in the viewer ... perception versus annoyance. To the viewer who has reached that level of awareness, my work is no longer abstract, but very real.
Original thought, original artistic expression is by its very nature questioning, irreverent, iconoclastic.
I always attempt to challenge and upend discourses that appear to be disinterestedly describing the world, but that are in fact wholly grounded in historically and culturally specific hegemonic modes of thought.
All criticism is opposition. All opposition is counter-revolutionary.
The most subtle art, the strongest and deepest art - supreme art - is the one that does not at first allow itself to be recognized.
An original mind is rarely understood, until it has been reflected from some half-dozen congenial with it, so averse are men to admitting the true in an unusual form; whilst any novelty, however fantastic, however false, is greedily swallowed.
One of the great secrets of the day is to know how to take possession of popular prejudices and passions, in such a way as to introduce a confusion of principles which makes impossible all understanding between those who speak the same language and have the same interests.
The radical and the reactionary loathe the present. They see it as an aberration and a deformity. Both are ready to proceed ruthlessly and recklessly with the present, and both are hospitable to the idea of self-sacrifice.
Roguery is thought by some to be cunning and laughable: it is neither; it is devilish.
We all feel that the opposite of our own highest principle must be purely destructive, deadly, and evil. We refuse to endow it with any positive life-force; hence we avoid and fear it.
Impelled by feelings that were primal yet paradoxically wholly impersonal. Feelings of contempt born of inchoate, unacknowledged fear
civilization's fear of nature, men's fear of women, power's fear of powerlessness. Man's subliminal urge to destroy what he could neither subdue nor deify.
One of the only coherent philosophical positions is thus revolt. It is a constant confrontation between man and his own obscurity.
True nonresistance is the one true resistance to evil. It kills and finally destroys the evil sentiment.
Illuminate the opposition.
Real obscurantism is not to hinder the spread of what is true, clear, and useful, but to bring into vogue what is false.
Power, safely defied, touches its downfall.
The poor have often been subversive just because they don't always believe their own depiction as brutes and loafers and leeches, and new economy is making lots more poor or recognize their fellowship with the insecurity of the poor, the portion of the population for whom the system does not work.
A phenomenon that gave rise to my first critical insight into the subtle ruse of power: the prevailing law threatened one with trouble, all to keep one out of trouble. Hence, I concluded that trouble is inevitable and the task, how best to make it, what best way to be in it.
To forge an untouchable, invulnerable identity is actually a sign of retreat from this world; of weakness, a sign of fear rather than strength, and betrays a strange misunderstandin g of an abiding, foundational and necessary reality: that untouched, we disappear.
Principles which could be subverted by feeling in one direction were liable to the same catastrophe in another. The
To excite opposition and inflame malevolence is the unhappy privilege of courage made arrogant by consciousness of strength.
Truth emerges from the clash of adverse ideas.
The powers and principalities would hold less sway over our lives if we refused to collaborate with them. But refusal is risky, so we deny our own truth, take up lives of "self-impersonation," and betray our identities.2
In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of this world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods.
What's the use of a clown who doesn't subvert?
The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought.
Profound it is, dark and obscure;
How can we ultimately fail to twig that the apparent impiety of contemporary art is only ever the inverted image of sacred art, the reversal of the creator's initial question: why is there something instead of nothing?
Repose demands for its expression the implied capability of its opposite,
energy.
The superficial and the slipshod have ready answers, but those looking this complex life straight in the eye acquire a wealth of perception so composed of delicately balanced contradictions that they dread, or resent, the call to couch any part of it in a bland generalization.
Inverted totalitarianism, unlike classical totalitarianism, does not revolve around a demagogue or charismatic leader. It finds expression in the anonymity of the Corporate State. It purports to cherish democracy, patriotism, and the Constitution while manipulating internal levers.
To paint, to write, to engage in politics - these are not merely 'sublimations'; here we have aims that are willed for their own sakes. To deny it is to falsify all human history.
The new always carries with it the sense of violation, of sacrilege. What is dead is sacred; what is new, that is different, is evil, dangerous, or subversive.
The great and invigorating influences in American life have been the unorthodox: the people who challenge an existing institution or way of life, or say and do things that make people think.
Today I realize that many recent exercises in "deconstructive reading" read as if inspired by my parody. This is parody's mission: it must never be afraid of going too far. If its aim is true, it simply heralds what others will later produce, unblushing, with impassive and assertive gravity.
Innate in nearly every artistic nature is a wanton, treacherous penchant for accepting injustice when it creates beauty and showing sympathy for and paying homage to aristocratic privilege.
The sneakiest form of literary subtlety, in a corrupt society, is to speak the plain truth. The critics will not understand you; the public will not believe you; your fellow writers will shake their heads. Laughter, praise, honors, money, and the love of beautiful girls will be your only reward.
Which is more subversive-and corrosive-to believe in altruism or to see it simply as a cloak of self interest? Even if altruism did not exist, it would be necessary to believe in it. Pessimists in power are prone to despotism.
Human rebellion ends in metaphysical revolution. It progresses from appearances to acts, from the dandy to the revolutionary.
In a repressed society, artists fulfil a sense of harking back to instant gratification, or immediate expression, by doing things that function on the edge of society, or outside of what is conventionally accepted.
A certain amount of contempt for the material employed to express an idea is indispensable to the purest realization of this idea.
[Concerning postmodernism:] The aim of this experimental history is to disturb the ontological security of modern identity and hence to provoke the possibility of otherness through exposition of the cultural difference concealed by, and within, the order of modern rationalism.
It is not the writer's task to answer questions but to question answers. To be impertinent, insolent, and, if necessary, subversive.
There is a tragic clash between Truth and the world. Pure undistorted truth burns up the world.
There is a certain imperiousness, in the manner of speaking and in actions, which makes itself felt everywhere, and soon wins attention and respect. This commanding quality is useful in all affairs, and even for obtaining what we ask for.
There is no escaping from power, that it is always-already present constituting that very thing which one attempts to counter it with.
There is an air of last things, a brooding sense of impending annihilation, about so much deconstructive activity, in so many of its guises; it is not merely postmodernist but preapocalyptic.
In every rebellion is to be found the metaphysical demand for unity, the impossibility of capturing it, and the construction of a substitute universe.
But there was a streak in me, a perverse one, which prevented me from giving the essential self. This "perversity" always voiced itself thus: "Reveal your true self and they will mutilate you.
The world of any moment is the merest appearance. Some great decorum, some fetish of government, some ephemeral trade, or war, or man, is cried up by half mankind and cried down by the other half, as if it all depended on this particular up or down.
Man's drive for self-expression, which over the centuries has built his monuments, does not stay within its bounds; the creations which yesterday were detested and the obscene become the classics of today.
Defiance is beautiful. The defiance of power, especially great or overwhelming power, exalts and glorifies the rebel.
The art of revolutionizing and overturning states is to undermine established customs, by going back to their origin, in order to mark their want of justice.
It is an undeniable privilege of every man to prove himself right in the thesis that the world is his enemy; for if he reiterates it frequently enough and makes it the background of his conduct he is bound eventually to be right.
It has become apparent that art can have a startling impact without really being or saying anything startling - or new. The character itself of being startling, spectacular, or upsetting has become conventionalized, part of safe good taste.
There is a quality even meaner than outright ugliness or disorder, and this meaner quality is the dishonest mask of pretended order, achieved by ignoring or suppressing the real order that is struggling to exist and to be served.
P57- the oppressors, whose tranquility rests on how well people fit the world the oppressors have created, and how little they question it.
Men live in glad obedience to the masters they believe in, or they live in a frictional opposition to the master they wish to undermine.
I haven't yet written a book in a far-future utopia, where all bad things are eliminated, but it would be fun to do that one day and introduce some subversion.
Government and culture are two diametrically opposed forces - the one blinds and oppresses, the other uplifts and unites.
A successful work of art is not one which resolves contradictions in a spurious harmony, but one which expresses the idea of harmony negatively by embodying the contradictions, pure and uncompromised, in its innermost structure.
The artist must possess the courageous soul that dares and defies
The commentator may be excused for repeating what he has stressed in his own books and lectures, namely that "offensive" is frequently but a synonym for "unusual;" and a great work of art is of course always original, and thus by its very nature should come more or less as a shocking surprise.
Dissimulation, even the most innocent in its nature, is ever productive of embarrassment; whether the design is evil or not artifice is always dangerous and almost inevitably disgraceful.
The subtle ruse of power: the prevailing law threatened one with trouble, even put one in trouble, all to keep one out of trouble. Hence, I concluded that trouble is inevitable and the task, how best to make it, what best way to be in it. As
Our subject is, you see, impelled towards the good by, paradoxically, being impelled towards evil. The intention to act violently is accompanied by strong feelings of physical distress. To counter these the subject has to switch to a diametrically opposed attitude.
A question is far more subversive, biblically, than a statement.
Nothing is so capable of overturning a good intention as to show a distrust of it; to be suspected for an enemy, is often sufficient to make a person become one ...
There were people in the world who, for all their gruff arrogance, can, with scarcely a few notes, easily persuade you they are inherently kind, candid, and vulnerable - with unsettling reminders, though, that their ability to flip from one to the other is what ultimately makes them deadly.
For a politics of emancipation, the enemy that is to be feared most is not repression at the hands of the established order. It is the interiority of nihilism, and the unbounded cruelty that can come with its emptiness.
But in action, one defies one's character.