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.

Revolution can never be forecast; it cannot be foretold; it comes of itself. Revolution is brewing and is bound to flare up.

Revolution begins in putting on bright colors.

The children of the revolution are always ungrateful, and the revolution must be grateful that it is so.

Insurrection of thought always precedes insurrection of arms.

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

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

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.

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

Insurgents are like conquerors: they must go forward; the moment they are stopped, they are lost.

Governments are not overthrown by the poor, who have no power, but by the rich—when they are insulted by their inferiors and cannot obtain justice.

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.

Revolutions never go backward.