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

To escape its wretched lot, the populace has three ways, two imaginary and one real. The first two are the rum shop and the church; the third is the social revolution.

All revolutions devour their own children.

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.

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

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

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

It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.

All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door. The violence of revolutions is the violence of men who charge into a vacuum.

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

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.

The only justification of rebellion is success.

Revolutions have never lightened the burden of tyranny, they have only shifted it to another shoulder.