What makes revolutionary thought unique is its clarity and dignity, and its clear grasp of freedom and justice: simple, clear words that are understood without the need for any help from elite writers or thinkers.
Nawal El SaadawiRead
Revolutionary men with principles were not really different from the rest. They used their cleverness to get, in return for principles, what other men buy with their money.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that revolutionary individuals often leverage their principles to gain resources or power, similar to the way others use money.
Nawal El Saadawi's quote reflects on the nature of revolutionary figures, indicating that their distinctiveness lies not in a lack of motivation for personal gain but rather in how they choose to pursue it. Instead of using financial transactions, they utilize their principles and ingenuity to achieve their ends, revealing a complex interplay between ethics and ambition in the pursuit of change.
Themes
RevolutionPrinciplesClevernessGainEthics
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about social justice, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of values in activism.
More from Nawal El Saadawi
All quotes βYet not for a single moment did I have any doubts about my own integrity and honour as a woman. I knew that my profession had been invented by men, and that men were in control of both our worlds, the one on earth, and the one in heaven. That men force women to sell their bodies at a price, and that the lowest paid body is that of a wife. All women are prostitutes of one kind or another.
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To be creative means to connect. It's to abolish the gap between the body, the mind and the soul, between science and art, between fiction and nonfiction.
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When you have increasing power of religious groups, oppression of women increases. Women are oppressed in all religions.
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My skin is soft, but my heart is cruel, and my bite is deadly.
Nawal El SaadawiRead
Interviewer: What would you say to a woman in this country who assumes she is no longer oppressed, who believes women's liberation has been achieved? el Saadawi: Well I would think she is blind. Like many people who are blind to gender problems, to class problems, to international problems. She's blind to what's happening to her.
Nawal El SaadawiRead
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