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.

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.

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

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

If there was ever a just war since the world began, it is this in which America is now engaged.

An oppressed people are authorized, whenever they can, to rise and break their fetters.

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

The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal.

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. 

Revolutions are not made by men in spectacles.

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.

All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door. The violence of revolutions is the violence of men who charge into a vacuum.

I have been ever of the opinion that revolutions are not to be evaded.