Archive

Quotes

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

—Pope Leo XIII, 1885

All revolutions devour their own children.

—Ernst Röhm, 1933

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.

—Michel de Montaigne, 1580

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

If not us, who? If not now, when?

—Czech slogan, 1989

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.

—Benjamin Franklin, 1776

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

—Havelock Ellis, 1921

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 63 BC

Revolutions never go backward.

—Thomas Skidmore, 1829

Revolutions are celebrated when they are no longer dangerous. 

—Pierre Boulez, 1989

And then, sir, there is this consideration: that if the abuse be enormous, nature will rise up and, claiming her original rights, overturn a corrupt political system.

—Samuel Johnson, 1791

Revolutionaries are greater sticklers for formality than conservatives.

—Italo Calvino, 1957

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

—John F. Kennedy, 1962