Archive

Quotes

Revolutionaries are greater sticklers for formality than conservatives.

—Italo Calvino, 1957

To cast aside obedience, and by popular violence to incite revolt, is treason, not against man only, but against God.

—Pope Leo XIII, 1885

The only justification of rebellion is success.

—Thomas B. Reed, 1878

Revolution begins in putting on bright colors.

—Tennessee Williams, 1944

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

—Thomas Paine, 1778

The 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, 1970

Revolutions are celebrated when they are no longer dangerous. 

—Pierre Boulez, 1989

Revolutions are not made by men in spectacles.

—Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1871

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

—Leo Tolstoy, 1893

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.

—Benjamin Franklin, 1776

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

—Hannah Arendt, 1970

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.

—Mikhail Bakunin, 1871

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

—Duke of Wellington, c. 1819