Archive

Quotes

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

—Jean Genet, 1983

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.

—John Kenneth Galbraith, 1977

Revolutions are not made by men in spectacles.

—Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1871

Who draws his sword against his prince must throw away the scabbard.

—James Howell, 1659

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

—Edmund Burke, 1790

The only justification of rebellion is success.

—Thomas B. Reed, 1878

Revolution begins in putting on bright colors.

—Tennessee Williams, 1944

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.

—George Sand, 1851

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.

—Michel de Montaigne, 1580

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

—John F. Kennedy, 1962

The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative on the day after the revolution.

—Hannah Arendt, 1970

Revolutions are always verbose.

—Leon Trotsky, 1933

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