Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist
Actually from State and Revolution by Vladimir Lenin, paraphrasing Marx in The Civil War in France.
Misattributed
Source The RIAA Settles Fast With 12-year-old Trader http://web.archive.org/web/20041010141527/http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2003/brianna_laHara.html - 9/10/2003 <br class="br">Quotes from the MP3 Newswire
Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist
Actually from State and Revolution by Vladimir Lenin, paraphrasing Marx in The Civil War in France.
Misattributed
Vladimir Lenin book The State and Revolution
Source: (1917), Ch. 5 [Lenin, Vladmir Illych, The State and Revolution, 1917, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm, Marx grasped this essence of capitalist democracy splendidly when, in analyzing the experience of the Commune, he said that the oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in parliament!]
Seth Godin (1960) American entrepreneur, author and public speaker
Source: Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?
George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States
2000s, 2008, Address to the United Nations General Assembly (September 2008)
Context: To uphold the Charter's promise of peace and security in the 21st century, we must also confront the ideology of the terrorists. At its core, the struggle against extremists is a battle of ideas. The terrorists envision a world in which religious freedom is denied, women are oppressed, and all dissent is crushed. The nations of this chamber must present a more hopeful alternative, a vision where people can speak freely, and worship as they choose, and pursue their dreams in liberty.
Prakash Javadekar (1951) Indian politician
as quoted in " Students should rebel, challenge status quo to innovate, says Prakash Javadekar http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Students-should-rebel-challenge-status-quo-to-innovate-says-Prakash-Javadekar/articleshow/53098941.cms", Times of India (07 July 2016)
Giovanni Baldelli (1914–1986) Anarchist theorist
Source: Social Anarchism (1971), p. 7
“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.
Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American writer
Nobel Prize Lecture (1993)
Context: Tongue-suicide is not only the choice of children. It is common among the infantile heads of state and power merchants whose evacuated language leaves them with no access to what is left of their human instincts for they speak only to those who obey, or in order to force obedience. The systematic looting of language can be recognized by the tendency of its users to forgo its nuanced, complex, mid-wifery properties for menace and subjugation. Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge. Whether it is obscuring state language or the faux-language of mindless media; whether it is the proud but calcified language of the academy or the commodity driven language of science; whether it is the malign language of law-without-ethics, or language designed for the estrangement of minorities, hiding its racist plunder in its literary cheek — it must be rejected, altered and exposed. It is the language that drinks blood, laps vulnerabilities, tucks its fascist boots under crinolines of respectability and patriotism as it moves relentlessly toward the bottom line and the bottomed-out mind. Sexist language, racist language, theistic language — all are typical of the policing languages of mastery, and cannot, do not permit new knowledge or encourage the mutual exchange of ideas.
Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman
Property (1935)
“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