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

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

Revolutions are not made by men in spectacles.

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.

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

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.

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

The peasants alone are revolutionary, for they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The starving peasant, outside the class system, is the first among the exploited to discover that only violence pays. For him there is no compromise, no possible coming to terms. 

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

The brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over we realize this: that the human has been roughly handled, but that it has advanced.

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.

To escape its wretched lot, the populace has three ways, two imaginary and one real. The first two are the rum shop and the church; the third is the social revolution.

Revolutionaries are greater sticklers for formality than conservatives.