Revolutions never go backward.

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

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.

I have been ever of the opinion that revolutions are not to be evaded.

In 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.

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

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.

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.

Every revolution by force only puts more violent means of enslavement into the hands of the persons in power.

All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the state.

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.

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

Revolutions are not made by men in spectacles.