If not us, who? If not now, when?

Those 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.

Make the revolution a parent of settlement and not a nursery of future revolutions.

To cast aside obedience, and by popular violence to incite revolt, is treason, not against man only, but against God.

Who draws his sword against his prince must throw away the scabbard.

Insurrection of thought always precedes insurrection of arms.

Revolutions never go backward.

The main object of a revolution is the liberation of man, not the interpretation and application of some transcendental ideology.

In 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.

An oppressed people are authorized, whenever they can, to rise and break their fetters.

All men recognize the right of revolution, that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable.

And then, sir, there is this consideration: that if the abuse be enormous, nature will rise up and, claiming her original rights, overturn a corrupt political system.

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.