Top 278 Subversive Quotes & Sayings

To look without fear is a good subversive tool, undermining taboos.

Original philosophy is always "deviant" or even subversive.

All art is subversive.

Sex and creativity are often seen by dictators as subversive activities.

The most subversive people are those who ask questions.

A lot of comedians today have misunderstood the concept of a subversive comedian. If you really want to be subversive, you have to please and offend in equal amounts.

What is subversive today, will almost certainly be patriotic tomorrow.

I can be a subversive element.

One of the things I love about the character development in 'Power' is Courtney A. Kemp's subversive use of stereotype.

I don't see myself as subversive. I just don't necessarily buy what people tell me initially.

Art is inherently subversive. It’s destabilizing. It undermines what you already know and what you already think. It is the opposite of propaganda.

It is subversive to set up inquisitions like this, state or national, into the thoughts and consciences of Americans. . . . It is subversive for commissions like this to spread hysteria and intimidation throughout the land that Americans are afraid to sign petitions, afraid to read progressive magazines, afraid to make out checks for liberal causes, afraid to join organizations, afraid to speak their mind on public issues. Americans dare not be free citizens! This is the destruction of democracy.

Subversive, ethical, ecological, political, humorous ... this is how I see my duty as a designer.

People who lack self-regulation are often invasive of others. They can be perceived as being controlling, antagonistic, or even subversive.

Subversive language, however, must be constantly reinvented, because it is continually being co-opted by the powerful.

Reading and writing are in themselves subversive acts.

It is not the writer's task to answer questions but to question answers. To be impertinent, insolent, and, if necessary, subversive.

I like racism above the ground so it can be dealt with, but when it's subversive and subjugated, it gets real dangerous.

The American indie underground made music for like-minded people who thought for themselves. Thinking for yourself is intrinsically subversive.

Creativity is basically subversive. . . .

The most socially subversive institution of our time is the one-parent family.

[Using humor to explore serious issues] disarms people. It's a way in. It's gentle, but at the same time it's subversive, and I like that duality.

The most inspiring thing for me about Calvin Klein was how subversive the advertising's message was. That's what drove me in my creative process and also in my creating now. The new advertising campaign is Calvin Klein the way I see it today. It's also bringing back the kind of subversive element that I always saw in Calvin Klein's campaigns.

You come out of the gate, you've got something new, you're subversive, nobody's ever done it before. But by your fifth novel and your fourth literary prize and your house in the country, can you really claim to be subversive?

When I was growing up, it was still during Apartheid, so the country was very shielded from the outside artistic world. Anything that was too subversive was basically banned. All the music that we got from outside of South Africa was the poppiest, least subversive music that you could get.

Facts are subversive. Subversive of the claims made by democratically elected leaders as well as dictators, by biographers and autobiographers, spies and heroes, torturers and post-modernists. Subversive of lies, half-truths, myths; of all those "easy speeches that comfort cruel men.

Fiction, on the whole, and if it is any good, tends to be a subversive element in society.

I enjoy working in a quiet and subversive way.

Honesty is the most subversive of all disguises.

Most of you didn't think that helping people share books would be a subversive act...Yet the fact is that you have chosen a profession that has become radical.

Visual storytelling is at once immediate and subversive.

We have to be militants for kindness, subversive for sweetness and radicals for tenderness.

The most subversive thing a woman can do is talk about her life as if it really matters.

I think the best pop is always subversive in its nature.

Comics can definitely be subversive on the whole, but it's a stylistic thing.

That's the privilege of being a grandparent - they can indulge the children while parents have to be the bad guy. Grandparents can also be subversive and naughty with them.

There's a great fear of the imagination. It's a dangerous thing. It's out of control, it's subversive.

So much conspires to silence us - because our truths are inherently subversive.

The secret subversive goal of my work is to show that women, not just lesbians, are regular human beings.

The Internet carries the flag of being subversive and possibly rebellious and chaotic, nihilistic.

I think we got much better poetry when it was all regarded as sinful or subversive, and you had to hide it under the cushion when somebody came in.

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.

Non-operational ideas are non-behavioral and subversive. The movement of thought is stopped at barriers which appear as the limits of Reason itself.

When I first read 'On the Road,' it helped me figure out how to live against the grain. Now I wonder how to be subversive when the subversive has become mainstream.

I teach self-reliance, the world's most subversive practice. I teach people how to grow their own food, which is shockingly subversive. So, yes, it’s seditious. But it’s peaceful sedition.

I am not a member of any organization listed by the Attorney General as subversive. In any instance where I lent my name in the past, it was certainly without knowledge that such an organization was subversive. I have always been essentially and foremost an American.

If I wanted to make a subversive record, it would be horrifying and insane.

I developed an anger at [Moses] Mendelssohn. Later, I read the book. I realized there was nothing subversive in it.

When a good idea sparks, it's usually because of some subversive angle that means the song we're writing will be fresh.

Our motto is, 'Be gentle and subversive.'

To totalitarianism, an opponent is by definition subversive; democracy treats subversives as mere opponents for fear of betraying its principles.

Ultimately, Photography is subversive, not when it frightens, repels, or even stigmatizes, but when it is pensive, when it thinks.

One of the most subversive institutions in the United States is the public library.

'The Beach' novel, in my mind, was, in some respects, subversive.

I seem to myself, among civilized men, an intruder, a troglodyte enamored of decrepitude, plunged into subversive prayers.

There is still such a thing as subversive. Subversive makes hip people nervous. It's something new that scares you in a good way. I mean, subversive to me is a compliment. Subversive is something that influences people to do something against society that they haven't thought of before.

Egotism is usually subversive of sagacity.

I think if it doesn't do what I say, if it doesn't do what I want, if it isn't politically subversive, if it isn't sexy, if it isn't stylish to make all that happen then it isn't truthfully worth listening to.

The vanity of shining in conversation is usually subversive of its own desires.

So Rita and I decided that the most subversive, revolutionary thing I could do was to show up for my life and not be ashamed.