Archive

Quotes

All revolutions devour their own children.

—Ernst Röhm, 1933

All civilization has from time to time become a thin crust over a volcano of revolution.

—Havelock Ellis, 1921

The peasants alone are revolutionary, for they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The starving peasant, outside the class system, is the first among the exploited to discover that only violence pays. For him there is no compromise, no possible coming to terms. 

—Frantz Fanon, 1961

The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal.

—Erich Fromm, 1941

I have been ever of the opinion that revolutions are not to be evaded.

—Benjamin Disraeli, 1844

Revolution begins in putting on bright colors.

—Tennessee Williams, 1944

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 63 BC

There is a kind of revolution of so general a character that it changes the mental tastes as well as the fortunes of the world.

—La Rochefoucauld, 1665

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.

—William Tecumseh Sherman, 1864

Revolutions are not about trifles, but they are produced by trifles. 

—Aristotle, c. 350 BC

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

—John F. Kennedy, 1962

Revolutions are celebrated when they are no longer dangerous. 

—Pierre Boulez, 1989

Revolutions never go backward.

—Thomas Skidmore, 1829