“The agitator must stand outside of organizations, with no bread to earn, no candidate to elect, no party to save, no object but truth — to tear a question open and riddle it with light.”

The Dance of Change (1999)
Context: Mutual reflection. Open and candid conversation. Questioning of old beliefs and assumptions. Learning to let go. Awareness of how our own actions create the systemic structures that produce our problems. Developing these learning capabilities lies at the heart of profound change.

Source: What is to be Done? (1902), Chapter Three, Section E, Essential Works of Lenin (1966)

Remarks about the Committee to Re-elect the President, as quoted in The New York Times (31 March 1974)
1970s

Source: The Storyteller

The Transgender Community Needs to Reestablish Its Voice (2005)

2014, 25th Anniversary of Polish Freedom Day Speech (June 2014)

Source: 1930s- 1950s, The End of Economic Man (1939), p. 84

1860s, A Short Autobiography (1860)
Context: A man offered to sell, and did sell, to Abraham and another as poor as himself, an old stock of goods, upon credit. They opened as merchants; and he says that was the store. Of course they did nothing but get deeper and deeper in debt. He was appointed postmaster at New Salem — the office being too insignificant to make his politics an objection. The store winked out. The surveyor of Sangamon offered to depute to Abraham that portion of his work which was within his part of the County. He accepted, procured a compass and chain, studied Flint https://books.google.com/books?id=iakIAAAAIAAJ and Gibson https://books.google.com/books?id=SIERLtc5aAYC a little, and went at it. This procured bread, and kept soul and body together. The election of 1834 came, and he was then elected to the legislature by the highest vote cast for any candidate. Major, then in full practice of the law, was also elected. During the canvass, in a private conversation, he encouraged Abraham to study law.<!--pp.18-19