Revolutions never go backward.
—Thomas Skidmore, 1829Quotes
All civilization has from time to time become a thin crust over a volcano of revolution.
—Havelock Ellis, 1921Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made—through disobedience and through rebellion.
—Oscar Wilde, 1891I have been ever of the opinion that revolutions are not to be evaded.
—Benjamin Disraeli, 1844In revolutions men fall and rise. Long before this war is over, much as you hear me praised now, you may hear me cursed and insulted.
—William Tecumseh Sherman, 1864The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal.
—Erich Fromm, 1941This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.
—Abraham Lincoln, 1861Those who give the first shock to a state are the first overwhelmed in its ruin; the fruits of public commotion are seldom enjoyed by him who was the first mover; he only beats the water for another’s net.
—Michel de Montaigne, 1580Every revolution by force only puts more violent means of enslavement into the hands of the persons in power.
—Leo Tolstoy, 1893All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the state.
—Albert Camus, 1951Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
—Benjamin Franklin, 1776The children of the revolution are always ungrateful, and the revolution must be grateful that it is so.
—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1983Revolutions are not made by men in spectacles.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1871