„Es gibt Revolutionen, die machen die Welt komplizierter, und es gibt Revolutionen, die machen die Welt einfacher. Und es gibt Revolutionen, die machen die Welt auf komplizierte Art einfacher. Dazu gehört das Telefon.“

Danton's Tod II, 1 / Danton, S. 57, [buechner_danton_1835/61].
Dantons Tod (1835)

Rede 1963, Message to the Grass Roots, aus: Speaks, ebd. S. 8 f.
"Whoever heard of a revolution where they lock arms, as Reverend Cleage was pointing out beautifully, singing "We Shall Overcome"? Just tell me. You don't do that in a revolution. You don't do any singing; you're too busy swinging." - http://xroads.virginia.edu/~public/civilrights/a0147.html

Das Elend der Philosophie, MEW Bd. 4, S. 182.
Das Elend der Philosophie (1847)

zitiert in "Lenin", 1955, Bd. 28, S. 490

Alix Kates Shulman teilte 1991 mit, dass sie Anfang 1973 zusammen mit Jack Frager an der Verbreitung dieser Zuschreibung beteiligt war. ( Alix Kates Shulman: Dances with Feminists. In: Women’s Review of Books. Vol. IX, No. 3. Dezember 1991 https://www.lib.berkeley.edu/goldman/Features/danceswithfeminists.html) Sie bezog sich dabei auf eine sinngemäße Passage in der Autobiographie von Emma Goldman: „At the dances I was one of the most untiring and gayest. One evening a cousin of Sasha [Alexander Berkman], a young boy, took me aside. With a grave face, as if he were about to announce the death of a dear comrade, he whispered to me that it did not behoove an agitator to dance. Certainly not with such reckless abandon, anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to become a force in the anarchist movement. My frivolity would only hurt the Cause. I grew furious at the impudent interference of the boy. I told him to mind his own business, I was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into my face. I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from conventions and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement should not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. "I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everyboy's right to beautiful, radiant things." Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world--prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own comrades I would live my beautiful ideal.“ ([Emma Goldman: Living My Life, Knopf, New York 1934, S. 56] zit.n. Alix Kates Shulman, vgl. auch die Ausgabe: Alfred A. Knopf Inc., New York 1931, S. 53 http://www.bdigital.unal.edu.co/39985/1/Living%20my%20life.pdf).
engl. zitiert als: „If I can't dance to it, it's not my revolution.“, auch: „If I can't dance I don't want to be in your revolution.“ oder: „If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution."
Fälschlich zugeschrieben

Aphorisms (1880/1893)

Die Klassenkämpfe in Frankreich 1848 bis 1850. MEW 7, S. 85, 1850
Andere Werke

Die Wahrheit lügt in der Mitte, S. 19
Die Wahrheit lügt in der Mitte