“Come holy harlequin!
Shake the world and shock the hypocrite”

—  Sydney Carter

"Come, Holy Harlequin" (1974)
Context: Come holy harlequin!
Shake the world and shock the hypocrite
Rock, love, carry it away, turn it upside down.
Let the feast of love begin,
Let the hungry all come in,
Rock, love, carry it away, turn it upside down.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Come holy harlequin! Shake the world and shock the hypocrite" by Sydney Carter?
Sydney Carter photo
Sydney Carter26
British musician and poet 1915–2004

Related quotes

Camille Paglia photo

“Shocked disbelief greets suggestions that many women may take pleasure in rape fantasies, established long ago by Nancy Friday in her pioneering 1973 study, My Secret Garden, and dramatized today by the staggering mass-market popularity of Harlequin Romances, where heroines are overwhelmed by passionate, impetuous men.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Vamps and Tramps (1994), "No Law in the Arena: A Pagan Theory of Sexuality", p. 37

“…one must take into account the shocking fact that we live on a world that spins. After considering this truth, nothing should come as a surprise.”

Thomas Ligotti (1953) American horror author

The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror (2010)

“In a world where nobody understood the viewpoint of the victim, we would all be right to side with the victim. But we live in a world where almost nobody 'comes out' as a Pharisee or a hypocrite, and it seems to me that the way to moral learning proceeds in that direction.”

James Alison (1959) Christian theologian, priest

Source: Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay (2001), " The man blind from birth and the Creator's subversion of sin http://girardianlectionary.net/res/fbr_ch-1_john9.htm", p. 19.

Joseph Joubert photo

“They want to shake up the world, not make it wiser.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

“History, as it comes into our daily lives, is charged with surprise and shock.”

Robert L. Heilbroner (1919–2005) American historian and economist

Source: The Future As History (1960), Chapter I, Part 1, The Shock of Events, p. 13

Khaled Hosseini photo

“Must have been quite the culture shock, going there.”
“Yes it was.” Idris doesn’t say that the real culture shock has been in coming back.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

Michael Crichton photo

“The notion that the natural world obeys its own rules and doesn't give a damn about your expectations comes as a massive shock… it will demand that you adapt to it — and if you don't, you die.”

Michael Crichton (1942–2008) American author, screenwriter, film producer

Environmentalism as a Religion (2003)
Context: The notion that the natural world obeys its own rules and doesn't give a damn about your expectations comes as a massive shock... it will demand that you adapt to it — and if you don't, you die. It is a harsh, powerful, and unforgiving world, that most urban westerners have never experienced.

Sue Monk Kidd photo

“It shocks me how I wish for… what is lost and cannot come back.”

Sue Monk Kidd (1948) Novelist

Source: Traveling With Pomegranates: A Mother-Daughter Story

“The world is holy. We are holy. All life is holy. Daily prayers are delivered on the lips of breaking waves, the whisperings of grasses, the shimmering of leaves.”

Terry Tempest Williams (1955) American writer

Bernard Cornwell photo

“I think the Holy Grail is a dream that men have, a dream that the world can be made perfect. And if it existed, then we'd all know the dream can't come true.”

Bernard Cornwell The Grail Quest

Thomas of Hookton, p. 192
The Grail Quest, Heretic (2003)

Related topics