The Gadfly Quotes

#1. Conflict is the gadfly of thought. It stirs us to observation and memory. It instigates invention. It shocks us out of sheep-like passivity, and sets us at noting and contriving ... conflict is a sine qua non of reflection and ingenuity.

John Dewey

#2. Athens is like a sluggish horse, and I am the gadfly trying to sting it into life.

Jostein Gaarder

#3. It's an artist's right to rebel against the world's stupidity.

E.A. Bucchianeri

#4. Poor God, how often He is blamed for all the suffering in the
world. It's like praising Satan for allowing all the good that happens.

E.A. Bucchianeri

#5. I mean really, how could an artistic individual stay grounded in the nitty-gritty of how many minutes per pound meat has to stay in the oven when trying to fathom the creative philosophy behind the greatest artistic minds of the world?

E.A. Bucchianeri

#6. A man doesn't like to have his ego popped, especially when he prides himself on his sagacity, and then to be proved wrong by a man who claims he doesn't know anything.

E.A. Bucchianeri

#7. I am a kamikaze gadfly.

Mo Rocca

#8. It was not curiosity that killed the goose who laid the golden egg, but an insatiable greed that devoured common sense.

E.A. Bucchianeri

#9. What you think is right isn't the same as knowing what is right.

E.A. Bucchianeri

#10. Could mankind declare it was truly wise? Did man know everything on earth, or would he ever? Certainly not!

E.A. Bucchianeri

#11. They kill me because they are afraid of me; and what more can any man's heart desire?

Ethel Lilian Voynich

#12. I'm a chameleon, so changeable. I see myself as a gadfly and a questioner.

Philip Johnson

#13. You know something is wrong when the government declares opening someone else's mail is a felony but your internet activity is fair game for data collecting.

E.A. Bucchianeri

#14. In Plato's republic, poets were considered subversive, a danger to the republic. I kind of relish that role. So I see my present role as a gadfly, to use my soapbox to promote my various ideas and obsesions.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

#15. [Editorial cartooning] is essentially a destructive art. We are not pontificators, or molders of thought - or at least we shouldn't try to be. Ours is more the role of the lowly gadfly: circle and stab, circle and stab. Roughly put, our credo should be, if it's big, hit it.

Bill Mauldin

#16. If that's the case, waiter, please bring me another piece of cake," Gramps said as lunch was brought to the table, "I'm all for fighting tyranny and oppression.

E.A. Bucchianeri

#17. You cannot hinder someone's free will, that's the first law of the Universe, no matter what the decision.

E.A. Bucchianeri

#18. By now, with all our modern technology, there should be no poverty left on earth.

E.A. Bucchianeri

#19. I don't think writers should be convenient examples. I don't think we should make people feel settled. I don't try to be a gadfly, but I do think that real ideas are troublesome. There should be something about my work that leaves the reader unsettled. I intend that.

Richard Rodriguez

#20. Sometimes I grow
so tired of speaking
my emotions to you.

I open my mouth
and dust spills out
instead of feelings.

Dust, and the yellow
wings of moths,
and brittle paper,

scrawled over
with riddles that
lack solutions.

Gabriel Gadfly

#21. I am that gadfly which God has attached to the state, and all day long ... arousing and persuading and reproaching ... You will not easily find another like me.

Plato

#22. If you are what you eat, you are what you see and hear.

E.A. Bucchianeri

#23. I am an artist you know ... it is my right to be odd.

E.A. Bucchianeri

#24. You may feel irritated at being suddenly awakened when you are caught napping; and you may think that if you were to strike me dead as you easily might, then you would sleep on for the remainder of your lives, unless God in his care of you gives you another gadfly.

Plato

#25. The reason people don't buy conspiracy theories is they think 'conspiracy' means everybody's on the same program. That's not how it works. Everybody's got a different program. They just all want the same guy dead. Socrates was a gadfly, but I bet he took time out to screw somebody's wife.

James Lee Burke

#26. The devil has not vanished simply because people refuse to believe he exists, no more than God has ...

E.A. Bucchianeri

#27. I detect the activist returning with a vengence.

E.A. Bucchianeri

#28. How terrible is the pain of the mind and heart when the freedom of mankind is suppressed!

E.A. Bucchianeri

#29. While you're singing something romantic, I can't get the lyrics to 'Love and Marriage' out of my head, and that tune always reminds me of the jingle from Jeopardy.

E.A. Bucchianeri

#30. The Saylor Foundation is meant to be a gadfly to encourage Google, Apple, MIT, Harvard, the United States government, and the Chinese government to aggressively pursue digital education.

Michael J. Saylor

#31. A true friend has your best interests at heart and the pluck to tell you what you need to hear.

E.A. Bucchianeri

#32. You ask why I love you. For this: You are a minute of quiet in a loud shouting world.

Gabriel Gadfly