manifesto craft

notes on writing manifestos that light both yours and readers’ hearts on fire

When you make something for someone else, you get glimpses. When you make something for you, you get goosebumps.

Jason Fried • Tweet

Demons must be named to be defeated, just as our deepest and most vile urges or emotions must be acknowledged to be integrated

Θωμᾶς del Vasto (soul/acc) • Tweet

The startup is a song, not a fixed story. New movements arise, old ones fade, new harmonies join. A manifesto is great way to coalesce the current movement but it must be a living document.

Clint Watson • Tweet

Remember that to always be rebelling against a thing is still to be controlled by it.

Amanda Fortini • Tweet

“Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherfucker who plays it is 80 percent.”

― Miles Davis

Poetic Outlaws • Tweet

Manifestos are repositories of a kind of magic and madness that does not exist in any other genre.

Julian Hanna • The 10 Things All Great Manifestos Need

1. Manifestos usually include a list of numbered tenets.

The format has been de rigeur since at least as far back as The Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789). It conveys a sense of urgency and straight talk. This is also why manifestos feel so contemporary: their close resemblance to click-bait top 10 lists.

Julian Hanna • The 10 Things All Great Manifestos Need

"Even if my expectations are unreasonable I would prefer to keep them"

Simon Sarris • Tweet

“Boundary lines, of any type, are never found in the real world itself, but only in the imagination of the mapmakers.” -Ken Wilber