Archive

Quotes

All revolutions devour their own children.

—Ernst Röhm, 1933

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

—James Howell, 1659

Revolutions are celebrated when they are no longer dangerous. 

—Pierre Boulez, 1989

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.

—Oscar Wilde, 1891

Revolutions are always verbose.

—Leon Trotsky, 1933

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

—Duke of Wellington, c. 1819

Revolutions have never lightened the burden of tyranny, they have only shifted it to another shoulder.

—George Bernard Shaw, 1903

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, 1849

Revolutions never go backward.

—Thomas Skidmore, 1829

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

—Albert Camus, 1951

The main object of a revolution is the liberation of man, not the interpretation and application of some transcendental ideology.

—Jean Genet, 1983

Revolution begins in putting on bright colors.

—Tennessee Williams, 1944

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.

—George Sand, 1851