#subversive

Whatever is funny is subversive, every joke is ultimately a custard pie... a dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion. ↗

— George Orwell

#custard pie #dirty #every #funny #joke

Granted, there are times when, for business reasons, you do something that's more mainstream. But even then, I try to find something that has a dark or subversive aspect. ↗

— Ryan Phillippe

#business #dark #even #find #granted

Socrates himself said, 'One thing only I know, and this is that I know nothing.' Remember this statement, because it is an admission that is rare, even among philosophers. Moreover, it can be so dangerous to say in public that it can cost you your life. The most subversive people are those who ask questions. Giving answers is not nearly as threatening. Any one question can be more explosive than a thousand answers. ↗

— Jostein Gaarder

#ask-questions #philosophy #questions #subversive #life

two people whose opinion I respect told me that the word "Christian" would turn people off. This certainly says something about the state of Christianity today. I wouldn't mind if to be a Christian were accepted as being the dangerous thing which it is; I wouldn't mind if, when a group of Christians meet for bread and wine, we might well be interrupted and jailed for subversive activities; I wouldn't mind if, once again, we were being thrown to the lions. I do mind, desperately, that the word "Christian" means for so many people smugness, and piosity, and holier-than-thouness. Who today can recognize a Christian because of "how those Christians love one another"? ↗

— Madeleine L'Engle

#dangerous #love #subversive #love

It was as if he grew his hair long and smoked cigarettes because he liked to, not because he liked being seen to. This was dangerously subversive. ↗

— Stephen Fry

#subversive #humor

Any startling piece of work has a subversive element in it, a delicious element often. Subversion is only disagreeable when it manifests in political or social activity. ↗

— Leonard Cohen

#any #delicious #disagreeable #element #manifests

Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive. ↗

— Henry Steele Commager

#authority #criticism #dangerous #equate #find

The real breeders of discontent and alien doctrines of government and philosophies subversive of good citizenship are such as these who take the law into their own hands. ↗

— John L. Lewis

#citizenship #discontent #doctrines #good #government

I have more respect for somebody who points at his ideal - in this case, the ideal of the pirate - and then becomes something that's more radical, more exciting, more subversive than a pirate could ever be. ↗

— Will Oldham

#case #could #ever #exciting #his

The function of literature, through all its mutations, has been to make us aware of the particularity of selves, and the high authority of the self in its quarrel with its society and its culture. Literature is in that sense subversive. ↗

— Lionel Trilling

#aware #been #culture #function #high