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.

No 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.

Revolution begins in putting on bright colors.

Make the revolution a parent of settlement and not a nursery of future revolutions.

All 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.

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

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

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.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

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

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

The only justification of rebellion is success.

The 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.