Ernesto Che Guevara quote: “Be realistic, demand the impossible!”

“Terrorism is the tactic of demanding the impossible, and demanding it at gunpoint.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

2002-11-18
http://slate.msn.com/?id=2074129
Terrorism: Notes toward a definition
Slate
1091-2339
2000s, 2002

“It has become impossible to be simultaneously realistic about both the political climate and the science of climate. The two stubbornly refuse to reconcile, so we are forced to decide which carries more weight, and then be profoundly unrealistic about the other. To take present policy seriously demands a total rejection of the science. To take the science seriously demands a total rejection of the policy on the table. And so grassroots movements like the Extinction Rebellion and Climate Mobilization are emerging – the realists of a larger reality.”

Shaun Chamberlin

"The Sequel: Life After Economic Growth", Tikkun (2018) https://www.tikkun.org/the-sequel-life-after-economic-growth

“The impossible is the least that one can demand.”

James Baldwin book The Fire Next Time

Source: The Fire Next Time

“Between the demand to be clear, and the temptation to be obscure, impossible to decide which deserves more respect.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

“In every rebellion is to be found the metaphysical demand for unity, the impossibility of capturing it, and the construction of a substitute universe.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

Part 4: Rebellion and Art
The Rebel (1951)

“To meet these challenges requires cooperation on a scale not seen before. A realistic reading of the world today demands reinvigorated international and regional institutions. It demands that we confront threats before they spiral out of the control. And it requires American leadership — to protect our interests and uphold our values.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Quotes, IPI speech (2000)
Context: The disruption of the world's ecological systems — from the rise of global warming and the consequent damage to our climate balance, to the loss of living species and the depletion of ocean fisheries and forest habitats — continues at a frightening rate. Practically every day, it becomes clearer to us that must act now to protect our Earth, while preserving and creating jobs for our people.
And at the very same time that these threats are developing, the traditional nation-state itself is changing — as power moves upwards and downwards, to everything from supra-national organizations and coalitions all the way down to feuding clans. Susceptible to tyrants willing to exploit ethnic and religious rivalries, the weakest of these states have either imploded into civil war or threatened to lash out across their borders.
To meet these challenges requires cooperation on a scale not seen before. A realistic reading of the world today demands reinvigorated international and regional institutions. It demands that we confront threats before they spiral out of the control. And it requires American leadership — to protect our interests and uphold our values.

“But when large gatherings of obstructionists made it impossible for the decrees of the Court to be carried out, both the law and the national interest demanded that the President take action.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

1950s, Address to the American People on the Situation in Little Rock (1957)
Context: It was my hope that this localized situation would be brought under control by city and State authorities. If the use of local police powers had been sufficient, our traditional method of leaving the problems in those hands would have been pursued. But when large gatherings of obstructionists made it impossible for the decrees of the Court to be carried out, both the law and the national interest demanded that the President take action.

“Without a market in which allocations can be made in obedience to the law of supply and demand, it is difficult or impossible to funnel resources with respect to actual human preferences and goals.”

Tibor R. Machan (1939–2016) Hungarian-American philosopher

Liberty and Research and Development: Science Funding in a Free Society, Introduction chapter: “Some Skeptical Reflections on Research and Development”, Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University (2002) p. xiii http://media.hoover.org/documents/0817929428_xi.pdf

“It is quite true that partition far from proving to be a solution to the Muslim problem has only aggravated it. But it is simply not true that there was a happy solution waiting round the corner only if partition had been avoided. For the Muslims demanded parity as the price for remaining in a politically united India and surely this was an impossible demand.”

Hamid Dalwai (1932–1977) Indian social reformer, thinker and writer

Muslim politics, p.113, quoted from Elst, Koenraad (2014). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa. p. 368

“The paramount question of the day is not political, is not religious, but is economic. The crying-out demand of today is for a circle of principles that shall forever make it impossible for one man to control another by controlling the means of his existence.”

Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912) American anarchist writer and feminist

The Economic Tendency of Freethought (1890)

“Be realistic, demand the impossible!”

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