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.
—Samuel Johnson, 1791Quotes
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
—John F. Kennedy, 1962Insurrection of thought always precedes insurrection of arms.
—Wendell Phillips, 1859To 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.
—Mikhail Bakunin, 1871This 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, 1861It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.
—Dolores Ibárruri, 1936All revolutions devour their own children.
—Ernst Röhm, 1933The 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, 1970Revolution begins in putting on bright colors.
—Tennessee Williams, 1944All men recognize the right of revolution, that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable.
—Henry David Thoreau, 1849An oppressed people are authorized, whenever they can, to rise and break their fetters.
—Henry Clay, 1842The 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, 1862No 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