Quotes about radicals

Radical simply means grasping things at the root.

— Angela Y. Davis

The spirit of our American radicalism is destructive and aimless; it is not loving; it has no ulterior and divine ends; but is destructive only out of hatred and selfishness.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

I never dared to be radical when young for fear it would make me conservative when old.

— Robert Frost

The force of what was called Panther rhetoric or word mongering resided not in elegant discourse but in strength of affirmation (or denial), in anger of tone and timbre. When the anger led to action there was no turgidity or over-emphasis. Anyone who has witnessed political rows among the Whites will have to admit that the Whites aren't overburdened with poetic imagination.

— Jean Genet

To the indefinite, uncertain mind of the American radical the most contradictory ideas and methods are possible. The result is a sad chaos in the radical movement, a sort of intellectual hash, which has neither taste nor character.

— Emma Goldman

So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot.

— George Orwell

My generation of radicals and breakers-down never found anything to take the place of the old virtues of work and courage and the old graces of courtesy and politeness.

— Source Unknown