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.
—Abraham Lincoln, 1861Quotes
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 63 BCAll revolutions devour their own children.
—Ernst Röhm, 1933If there was ever a just war since the world began, it is this in which America is now engaged.
—Thomas Paine, 1778To cast aside obedience, and by popular violence to incite revolt, is treason, not against man only, but against God.
—Pope Leo XIII, 1885Make the revolution a parent of settlement and not a nursery of future revolutions.
—Edmund Burke, 1790Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
—John F. Kennedy, 1962Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
—Benjamin Franklin, 1776There is a kind of revolution of so general a character that it changes the mental tastes as well as the fortunes of the world.
—La Rochefoucauld, 1665All civilization has from time to time become a thin crust over a volcano of revolution.
—Havelock Ellis, 1921Rebellion is no less a sin than divination.
—Book of Samuel, c. 550 BCRevolution can never be forecast; it cannot be foretold; it comes of itself. Revolution is brewing and is bound to flare up.
—Vladimir Lenin, 1918It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.
—Dolores Ibárruri, 1936