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

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

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

The spirit of revolution, the spirit of insurrection, is a spirit radically opposed to liberty.

Rebellion is no less a sin than divination.

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.

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.

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

All civilization has from time to time become a thin crust over a volcano of revolution.

This 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.

It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.

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

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.