Revolutions are always verbose.
—Leon Trotsky, 1933Quotes
Insurgents are like conquerors: they must go forward; the moment they are stopped, they are lost.
—Duke of Wellington, c. 1819I began revolution with eighty-two men. If I had to do it again, I do it with ten or fifteen and absolute faith. It does not matter how small you are if you have faith and plan of action.
—Fidel Castro, 1959
Revolution can never be forecast; it cannot be foretold; it comes of itself. Revolution is brewing and is bound to flare up.
—Vladimir Lenin, 1918Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
—John F. Kennedy, 1962Governments 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 BCAll men recognize the right of revolution, that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable.
—Henry David Thoreau, 1849Rebellion is no less a sin than divination.
—Book of Samuel, c. 550 BCIn 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.
—William Tecumseh Sherman, 1864To cast aside obedience, and by popular violence to incite revolt, is treason, not against man only, but against God.
—Pope Leo XIII, 1885And 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.
—Samuel Johnson, 1791Revolutions never go backward.
—Thomas Skidmore, 1829Revolutions are not made by men in spectacles.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1871