All revolutions devour their own children.
—Ernst Röhm, 1933Quotes
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 BCThe successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal.
—Erich Fromm, 1941No 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, 1851The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative on the day after the revolution.
—Hannah Arendt, 1970All civilization has from time to time become a thin crust over a volcano of revolution.
—Havelock Ellis, 1921Revolution begins in putting on bright colors.
—Tennessee Williams, 1944Revolutions are not about trifles, but they are produced by trifles.
—Aristotle, c. 350 BCThe main object of a revolution is the liberation of man, not the interpretation and application of some transcendental ideology.
—Jean Genet, 1983Every revolution by force only puts more violent means of enslavement into the hands of the persons in power.
—Leo Tolstoy, 1893Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 63 BCThe spirit of revolution, the spirit of insurrection, is a spirit radically opposed to liberty.
—François Guizot, 1830To cast aside obedience, and by popular violence to incite revolt, is treason, not against man only, but against God.
—Pope Leo XIII, 1885