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The idea of justice – even just dreaming of justice – is revolutionary. The language of human rights tends to accept a status quo that is intrinsically unjust – and then tries to make it more accountable.

Arundhati Roy

When people say “the people” or “the public” as though it’s the final repository of all morality, I sometimes flinch.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Moral Myself People Reaction
The American way of life is not sustainable. It doesn’t acknowledge that there is a world beyond America.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Beyond Life Way World
Every people, every society, needs a culture of resistance, a culture of being difficult and disobedient, that is the only way they will ever be able to stand up to the inevitable abuse of power by whoever runs the state apparatus, the capitalists, the communists, the socialists, the Gandhians, whoever.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Culture Difficult Injustice Need People Power Resistance Society
Literature is the opposite of a nuclear bomb.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Literature Opposite Weapon
Fascism itself can only be turned away if all those who are outraged by it show a commitment to social justice that equals the intensity of their indignation.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Angry Commitment Equality Intensity Justice
The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Break History Ideas Need Power Remember Revolution War Weapon
Terrorism is the symptom, not the disease.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Difference One Liner Sick Terrorism
If you’re happy in a dream, does that count?
ARUNDHATI ROY

Count Dreams Happiness
Flags are bits of colored cloth used first to shrinkwrap people’s brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Clothes Color Death People
Either way, change will come. It could be bloody, or it could be beautiful. It depends on us.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Beautiful Change Deep Destruction Inspirational
The trouble is that once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And once you’ve seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There’s no innocence. Either way, you’re accountable.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Innocent Politics Quiet Responsibility See Trouble Yourself
Change is one thing. Acceptance is another.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Acceptance Change
I feel ashamed that the new, nuclear, neo-liberal India thinks of itself as a ‘natural ally’ of Israel. Ever since India began to call itself an emerging superpower, it has become a slavish, groveling satellite state of the US.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Feeling Shame Slave Thinking
Use your art to fight.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Art Fight One Liner
The American people ought to know that it is not them, but their government’s policies, that are so hated.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Government Hate People Politics
The NGO-ization of politics threatens to turn resistance into a well-mannered, reasonable, salaried, 9-to-5 job. With a few perks thrown in. Real resistance has real consequences. And no salary.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Money Politics Reaction Reality Reason Resistance Scare

The idea of justice – even just dreaming of justice – is revolutionary. The language of human rights tends to accept a status quo that is intrinsically unjust – and then tries to make it more accountable.

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The idea of justice – even just dreaming of justice – is revolutionary. The language of human rights tends to accept a status quo that is intrinsically unjust – and then tries to make it more accountable.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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