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Quotes

Revolutions are not made by men in spectacles.

—Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1871

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

—Aristotle, c. 350 BC

Rebellion is no less a sin than divination.

—Book of Samuel, c. 550 BC

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

—Havelock Ellis, 1921

All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the state.

—Albert Camus, 1951

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.

—Benjamin Franklin, 1776

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

—Erich Fromm, 1941

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, 1862

Disobedience, 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, 1891

No one makes a revolution by himself, and there are some revolutions which humanity accomplishes without quite knowing how, because it is everybody who takes them in hand.

—George Sand, 1851

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.

—Michel de Montaigne, 1580

Revolutions never go backward.

—Thomas Skidmore, 1829

The only justification of rebellion is success.

—Thomas B. Reed, 1878