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

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

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

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.

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

The main object of a revolution is the liberation of man, not the interpretation and application of some transcendental ideology.

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.

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

Revolution begins in putting on bright colors.

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

Rebellion is no less a sin than divination.

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.

Revolutionaries are greater sticklers for formality than conservatives.