This 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, 1861Quotes
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, 1665The 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, 1970Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 63 BCRevolution can never be forecast; it cannot be foretold; it comes of itself. Revolution is brewing and is bound to flare up.
—Vladimir Lenin, 1918Make the revolution a parent of settlement and not a nursery of future revolutions.
—Edmund Burke, 1790The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative on the day after the revolution.
—Hannah Arendt, 1970Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
—Benjamin Franklin, 1776Rebellion is no less a sin than divination.
—Book of Samuel, c. 550 BCRevolutions are always verbose.
—Leon Trotsky, 1933Revolution begins in putting on bright colors.
—Tennessee Williams, 1944All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the state.
—Albert Camus, 1951Revolutions are celebrated when they are no longer dangerous.
—Pierre Boulez, 1989