Archive

Quotes

Revolution can never be forecast; it cannot be foretold; it comes of itself. Revolution is brewing and is bound to flare up.

—Vladimir Lenin, 1918

There is a kind of revolution of so general a character that it changes the mental tastes as well as the fortunes of the world.

—La Rochefoucauld, 1665

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

—Edmund Burke, 1790

Revolutions are not about trifles, but they are produced by trifles. 

—Aristotle, c. 350 BC

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

—Dolores Ibárruri, 1936

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

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.

—Benjamin Franklin, 1776

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

Revolutions never go backward.

—Thomas Skidmore, 1829

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

—Leo Tolstoy, 1893

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

—Albert Camus, 1951

The only justification of rebellion is success.

—Thomas B. Reed, 1878