Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 4, Conquest
“I am not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it.”
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) Italian politician, Writer and Author
This is a quote by Newt Gingrich, first appearing in an article in the Los Angeles Times in 1991. http://articles.latimes.com/1991-08-25/magazine/tm-2004_1_newt-gingrich/2 <br class="br">Misattributed
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Source: 1920s, Sceptical Essays (1928), Ch. 12: Free Thought and Official Propaganda http://books.google.com/books?id=9tQsg5ITfHsC&q=%22The+State+is+a+collection+of+officials+different+for+different+purposes+drawing+comfortable+incomes+so+long+as+the+status+quo+is+preserved+The+only+alteration+they+are+likely+to+desire+in+the+status+quo+is+an+increase+of+bureaucracy+and+the+power+of+bureaucrats%22&pg=PA134#v=onepage
“Their pledge is a pledge to the status quo — and today there can be no status quo.”
John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America
Address Accepting the Democratic Party Nomination for the Presidency of the United States — Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles (15 July 1960) http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx<!-- Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project --> <br class="br">1960 <br class="br">Context: Their platform, made up of left-over Democratic planks, has the courage of our old convictions. Their pledge is a pledge to the status quo — and today there can be no status quo.
Hannes Alfvén (1908–1995) Swedish electrical engineer and plasma physicist
Source: Dean of the Plasma Dissidents (1988), p. 197.
“Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.”
Laurence J. Peter (1919–1990) Canadian eductor
Source: Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (1977), p. 83
“The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.”
Warren Bennis (1925–2014) American leadership expert
Bennis (1989, p. 45), cited in: Terrence Mech, Gerard B. McCabe (1998) Leadership and Academic Librarians. p. 56
1980s
“Every ruler wants to maintain the status quo.”
Tim Powers book The Stress of Her Regard
Interlude “Summer, 1818” (p. 170)
The Stress of Her Regard (1989)
“Every threat to the status quo is an opportunity in disguise.”
Jay Samit (1961) American businessman
Source: Disrupt You! (2015), p.132
“Science is not about status quo. It’s about revolution.”
Leon M. Lederman (1922–2018) American mathematician and physicist
The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question? (1993), p. 193
