To 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.

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

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

The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative on the day after the revolution.

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

The peasants alone are revolutionary, for they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The starving peasant, outside the class system, is the first among the exploited to discover that only violence pays. For him there is no compromise, no possible coming to terms. 

Insurgents are like conquerors: they must go forward; the moment they are stopped, they are lost.

All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door. The violence of revolutions is the violence of men who charge into a vacuum.

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.

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

If there was ever a just war since the world began, it is this in which America is now engaged.

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.

Revolutions are not about trifles, but they are produced by trifles.