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.
—Michel de Montaigne, 1580Quotes
An oppressed people are authorized, whenever they can, to rise and break their fetters.
—Henry Clay, 1842The spirit of revolution, the spirit of insurrection, is a spirit radically opposed to liberty.
—François Guizot, 1830The 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, 1970The 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, 1862Insurrection of thought always precedes insurrection of arms.
—Wendell Phillips, 1859It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.
—Dolores Ibárruri, 1936In revolutions men fall and rise. Long before this war is over, much as you hear me praised now, you may hear me cursed and insulted.
—William Tecumseh Sherman, 1864Revolutions are not made by men in spectacles.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1871The only justification of rebellion is success.
—Thomas B. Reed, 1878All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door. The violence of revolutions is the violence of men who charge into a vacuum.
—John Kenneth Galbraith, 1977All revolutions devour their own children.
—Ernst Röhm, 1933The main object of a revolution is the liberation of man, not the interpretation and application of some transcendental ideology.
—Jean Genet, 1983