The brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over we realize this: that the human has been roughly handled, but that it has advanced.
—Victor Hugo, 1862Quotes
The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative on the day after the revolution.
—Hannah Arendt, 1970If there was ever a just war since the world began, it is this in which America is now engaged.
—Thomas Paine, 1778The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal.
—Erich Fromm, 1941The only justification of rebellion is success.
—Thomas B. Reed, 1878Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
—John F. Kennedy, 1962Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
—Benjamin Franklin, 1776The main object of a revolution is the liberation of man, not the interpretation and application of some transcendental ideology.
—Jean Genet, 1983Revolution can never be forecast; it cannot be foretold; it comes of itself. Revolution is brewing and is bound to flare up.
—Vladimir Lenin, 1918The surest guide to the correctness of the path that women take is joy in the struggle. Revolution is the festival of the oppressed.
—Germaine Greer, 1970I have been ever of the opinion that revolutions are not to be evaded.
—Benjamin Disraeli, 1844An oppressed people are authorized, whenever they can, to rise and break their fetters.
—Henry Clay, 1842All revolutions devour their own children.
—Ernst Röhm, 1933