Archive

Quotes

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

—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1983

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

—Erich Fromm, 1941

Revolutionaries are greater sticklers for formality than conservatives.

—Italo Calvino, 1957

Revolutions never go backward.

—Thomas Skidmore, 1829

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

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

—Leo Tolstoy, 1893

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

—Hannah Arendt, 1970

Revolution begins in putting on bright colors.

—Tennessee Williams, 1944

Revolutions are always verbose.

—Leon Trotsky, 1933

Governments 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 BC

Who draws his sword against his prince must throw away the scabbard.

—James Howell, 1659

All revolutions devour their own children.

—Ernst Röhm, 1933

Rebellion is no less a sin than divination.

—Book of Samuel, c. 550 BC