In revolutions men fall and rise. Long before this war is over, much as you hear me praised now, you may hear me cursed and insulted.

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

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.

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

Insurrection of thought always precedes insurrection of arms.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

No 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.