There are only two great currents in the history of mankind: the baseness which makes conservatives and the envy which makes revolutionaries.
About this quote
- Attributed to
- Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
- Attribution status
- As published
Photo: Tom Habibi · CC BY-SA 3.0 · source · Portrait: Nadar (Public domain)
Who taught you something like this — and have you thanked them?
Write one sentence in your journal about what this means to you.
Join to journal, save & shareCreate a share imageWatch & listen
Ultimix@6 Dj Kent 06 12 13 A Tribute to Nelson Mandela
Madiba Tribute (Photo Montage of the life of Nelson Mandela)
Nelson Mandela Tribute: Remembering South Africa's first black president
More from Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt & related wisdom
You have to dream before your dreams can come true.
People are always shouting they want to create a better future. It's not true. The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone. The past is full of life, eager to irritate us, provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it. The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past.
One gratifying aspect of our rise to some prominence is that, for the first time in my memory, we, 'our side,' had captured a crucial word from the enemy . . . 'Libertarians' . . . had long been simply a polite word for left-wing anarchists, that is for anti-private property anarchists, either of the communist or syndicalist variety. But now we had taken it over...
