"Anarchy is the only slight glimmer of hope"
About this Quote
Jagger’s cultural role matters. The Rolling Stones didn’t sell themselves as utopians; they sold themselves as trouble. In late-60s rock, “anarchy” functioned as shorthand for refusing the scripts handed down by government, police, respectable media, even well-meaning liberal institutions. The line flirts with danger while keeping one foot in realism: the hope isn’t in chaos for its own sake, but in disruption as the only remaining lever when the system seems designed to absorb dissent and keep moving.
The subtext is also about performance. Rock stardom turns rebellion into a commodity, and Jagger knows it. “Slight glimmer” reads like a self-aware hedge: an admission that even counterculture can be packaged, that radical rhetoric can become a stage effect. Yet the phrase still works because it captures an enduring mood - when politics becomes managerial and culture becomes sanitized, people start craving the one thing that can’t be neatly managed. Anarchy, here, is less an end state than an alarm bell: if you won’t fix the house, don’t be shocked when someone starts kicking in the doors.
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite | Cite this Quote |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Jagger, Mick. (2026, January 15). Anarchy is the only slight glimmer of hope. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/anarchy-is-the-only-slight-glimmer-of-hope-64788/
Chicago Style
Jagger, Mick. "Anarchy is the only slight glimmer of hope." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/anarchy-is-the-only-slight-glimmer-of-hope-64788/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Anarchy is the only slight glimmer of hope." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/anarchy-is-the-only-slight-glimmer-of-hope-64788/. Accessed 3 Feb. 2026.











