“Whenever you honor the honorable, you possess them. Whenever you honor the ignoble, they rebel.”
Al-Mutanabbi (915–965) Arabic poet from the Abbasid era
A collection of quotes on the topic of rebel, people, doing, other.
“Whenever you honor the honorable, you possess them. Whenever you honor the ignoble, they rebel.”
Al-Mutanabbi (915–965) Arabic poet from the Abbasid era
“Every woman is a rebel, and usually in wild revolt against herself.”
Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance
Source: A Woman of No Importance
“Look, even a rebel like Jainab has also surrendered.”
Begum Rokeya (1880–1932) Bengali feminist writer and social worker
Padmarag (1924) https://dev.thedailystar.net/news-detail-165630 <br class="br">Context: If today I get back with you, our conservative grandmothers will say to other women rebelling against gender injustices, Look, even a rebel like Jainab has also surrendered. I don't believe that only married life can be the ultimate success for women.
“My mind rebels at stagnation, give me problems, give me work!”
Arthur Conan Doyle book The Sign of the Four
Source: The Sign of Four
Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician
As recorded in filmed interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsfYAJ3dQyY&feature=player_embedded (1979) with Dylan Taite in Aotearoa, New Zealand <br class="br">Context: All dese governments and dis this and that, these people that say they're here to help, why them say you cannot smoke the herb? Herb... herb is a plant, you know? And when me check it, me can't find no reason. All them say is, 'it make you rebel'. Against what?
William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer
The William Saroyan Reader (1958)
Context: The writer is a spiritual anarchist, as in the depth of his soul every man is. He is discontented with everything and everybody. The writer is everybody's best friend and only true enemy — the good and great enemy. He neither walks with the multitude nor cheers with them. The writer who is a writer is a rebel who never stops.
“So few want to be rebels anymore. And out of those few, most, like myself, scare easily.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer
W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963) American sociologist, historian, activist and writer
Source: The Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois: A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of Its First Century
“Intellectuals are rebels, not revolutionaries.”
César Vallejo (1892–1938) Peruvian writer
Los intelectuales son rebeldes, pero no revolucionarios.
Source: Aphorisms (2002), p. 18
Henry Steele Commager (1902–1998) American historian
Source: Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent (1954), p. 147
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer
Used in the Apple "Think Different" marketing campaign and sometimes attributed to Kerouac on the internet, perhaps because it evokes his famous quote from On the Road: "The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"" The original script was actuality written by Rob Siltanen with participation of Lee Clow. In "The Real Story Behind Apple's 'Think Different' Campaign" in Forbes (14 December 2011) http://www.forbes.com/sites/onmarketing/2011/12/14/the-real-story-behind-apples-think-different-campaign/ Rob Siltanen states: "I wrote everything..." "I shared my scripts with Lee, and he thought they were good. He made a couple tweaks..." <br class="br">Misattributed
Louis Antoine de Saint-Just (1767–1794) military and political leader
On ne peut point régner innocemment : la folie en est trop évidente. Tout roi est un rebelle et un usurpateur. <br class="br"> Sur le jugement de Louis XVI (1er discours) http://www.royet.org/nea1789-1794/archives/discours/stjust_jugement_louis16_1_13_11_92.htm, speech to the National Convention (November 13, 1792).
Niels Bohr (1885–1962) Danish physicist
As quoted in The World of the Atom (1966) by Henry Abraham Boorse and Lloyd Motz, p. 741
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist
The Crisis No. III.
1770s, The American Crisis (1776–1783)
“The constellations this year seem unfavourable to rebels.”
Cesare Borgia (1475–1507) Duke of Romagna and former Catholic cardinal
Cesare to Macchiavelli (October, 1502), as quoted by Rafael Sabatini, 'The Life of Cesare Borgia', Chapter XV: Macchiavelli's Legation
Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.
Apple Inc. "Think different" advertising company.
2000s
Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States
To Alexander H. Stephens, Lincoln http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Lincoln.html (2012). <br class="br">In fiction, Lincoln (2012)
Edmund Cooper (1926–1982) British writer
The Overman Culture (1971)
Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter
Rock and Roll Rebel, written by Ozzy Osbourne.
Song lyrics, Bark at the Moon (1983)
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
As quoted in Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, 1847-1865 https://archive.org/details/recollectionsab00lamogoog (1895), by Ward Hill Lamon, p. 90 <br class="br">1860s
Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation
Statement of 25 August 1538, in Table-Talk, as translated by William Hazlitt (1857), DLXXVII
Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor
Babur-Nama, translated into English by A.S. Beveridge, New Delhi reprint, 1979, pp. 370-71.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)
Theodore Kaczynski (1942) American domestic terrorist, mathematician and anarchist
Letter to M. K.
The Road to Revolution (2008)
Peter Gelderloos (1982) American anarchist
Peter Gelderloos, How Nonviolence Protects the State http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-how-nonviolence-protects-the-state (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2007), 37.
Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War
Book III, 3.39-[3]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book III
Syed Ahmed Khan (1820–1898) Indian educator and politician
quoted in Arun Shourie - The World of Fatwas Or The Sharia in Action (2012, Harper Collins)
Shulamit Aloni (1928–2014) Israeli politician
שולמית אלוני, ישושון בלי דם ואש, דבר, 21 באוקטובר 1977 https://www.nli.org.il/he/newspapers/dav/1977/10/21/01/article/151?&dliv=none&e=-------he-20--1--img-txIN%7ctxTI--------------1&utm_source=he.wikipedia.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=%22שולמית+אלוני%22&utm_content=itonut
“He was, after all, the ultimate rebel -- it takes a lot of cojones to stand up to Zeus.”
Jasper Fforde book The Big Over Easy
Source: The Big Over Easy
“I'm not messy. I'm rebelling against folding.”
Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer
Source: How to Kill a Rock Star
“When I need to identify rebels, I look for men with principles”
Frank Herbert book God Emperor of Dune
Source: God Emperor of Dune
“To rebel against being born a woman seemed as foolish to her as to take pride in it.”
Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Dean Koontz book The Darkest Evening of the Year
Source: The Darkest Evening of the Year
“Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.”
Edmund Burke book Reflections on the Revolution in France
Volume iii, p. 334
Source: Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
Clint Eastwood (1930) actor and director from the United States
Source: Wild Open Spaces: Why We Love Westerns
“Tyrants conduct monologues above a million solitudes. —ALBERT CAMUS, THE REBEL”
Clive James book Cultural Amnesia
Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts
Fanny J. Crosby (1820–1915) American poet, lyricist and composer
Dixie For The Union http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/dixie/lyrics.html#union. <br class="br">1860s
“We follow ideas and not men, and rebel against this habit of embodying a principle in a man.”
Errico Malatesta (1853–1932) Italian anarchist
Speech to International Anarchist Congress (1907)
Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary
Speech at the University of Las Villas (1959)
Philip Roth book The Facts: A Novelist's Autobiography
Nathan Zuckerman to Philip Roth
The Facts: A Novelist's Autobiography (1988)
“It's not that I'm rebelling. It's that I'm just trying to find another way.”
Edie Sedgwick (1943–1971) Socialite, actress, model
Edie : Girl On Fire (2006)
Thomas Notley (1634–1679) American politician
Letter https://books.google.com/books?id=hFE4AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA8 to Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore (22 January 1677).
Carroll Quigley (1910–1977) American historian
Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals" (1976)
David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger
Rebel Rebel
Song lyrics, Diamond Dogs (1974)
John Conington (1825–1869) British classical scholar
Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book I, p. 10
Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist
as interviewed by Elias Isquith, salon.com http://www.salon.com/2015/06/04/we_are_in_a_revolutionary_moment_chris_hedges_explains_why_an_uprising_is_coming_%E2%80%94_and_soon/
Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968) American journalist
Written in 1935, as quoted in The Ghost in the Little House, ch. 2, by William V. Holtz (1993).
Erika Jayne (1969) American singer, actress and television personality
Erika Jayne interview to Nightline http://www.bravotv.com/the-daily-dish/erika-girardi-on-creation-of-erika-jayne (2017)
Newt Gingrich (1943) Professor, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
On the Record
Fox News
2011-03-07
2010s
Kenneth Rexroth (1905–1982) American poet, writer, anarchist, academic and conscientious objector
Rothenberg and Antin interview (1958)
Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States
1860s, Letter to Isaac N. Morris (1868)
Michael Swanwick book Vacuum Flowers
Source: Vacuum Flowers (1987), Chapter 5, “People's Sheraton” (pp. 74-75)
Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union
As quoted in American Dream, a Search for Justice (2003) by Sherman D. Manning, p. 125
Phillip Abbott Luce (1935–1998)
Quoted in “Not All Protesters Part of Conspiracy,” Jerry R. Wilson, The Oklahoma Journal, August 7, 1972, speech by Phillip Abbott Luce in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Peter Farb (1929–1980) American academic and writer
Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)
Horace Greeley (1811–1872) American politician and publisher
1860s, The Prayer of the Twenty Millions (1862)
Peter Farb (1929–1980) American academic and writer
Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)
Niccolao Manucci (1638–1717) Italian writer and historian
Manucci elaborating about the women and eunuchs in the Mughal harems. Manucci, II, 336-38. Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 12
Storia do Mogor
Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scientist, revolutionary, economist, activist, geogr…
Source: Law and Authority (1886), I
Rollo May (1909–1994) US psychiatrist
Source: Power and Innocence (1972), Ch. 11 : The Humanity of the Rebel
Oliver P. Morton (1823–1877) American politician
As contained in Treason Exposed: Record of the Disloyal Democracy https://books.google.com/books?id=1-d9AAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22Treason+Exposed:+Record+of+the+Disloyal+Democracy%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwisi5WmtMrLAhUCOz4KHUcHCEcQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=%22Treason%20Exposed%3A%20Record%20of%20the%20Disloyal%20Democracy%22&f=false (1866), Republican Party (Ind.) State Central Committee, p. 2 <br class="br">Arraignment of the Democratic Party (June 1866)
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher
1840s, Past and Present (1843)
Charles A. Reich (1928–2019) American lawyer
The Greening of America turns 40 (2010)
“Goodbye Bill. I die like a true blue rebel. Don't waste any time in mourning. Organize.”
Joe Hill (1879–1915) Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World
Telegram to William "Big Bill" Haywood (1915-11-18), quoted in International Socialist Review, vol. XVI (December 1915)