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.
—Henry David Thoreau, 1849Quotes
Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
—Benjamin Franklin, 1776The spirit of revolution, the spirit of insurrection, is a spirit radically opposed to liberty.
—François Guizot, 1830There 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, 1665To 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, 1871All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the state.
—Albert Camus, 1951Governments are not overthrown by the poor, who have no power, but by the rich—when they are insulted by their inferiors and cannot obtain justice.
—Dionysius of Halicarnassus, c. 20 BCThe most radical revolutionary will become a conservative on the day after the revolution.
—Hannah Arendt, 1970Revolutions are always verbose.
—Leon Trotsky, 1933Revolutions are celebrated when they are no longer dangerous.
—Pierre Boulez, 1989Revolution can never be forecast; it cannot be foretold; it comes of itself. Revolution is brewing and is bound to flare up.
—Vladimir Lenin, 1918The 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.
—Frantz Fanon, 1961This 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, 1861