Archive

Quotes

Revolutionaries are greater sticklers for formality than conservatives.

—Italo Calvino, 1957

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

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

The only justification of rebellion is success.

—Thomas B. Reed, 1878

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

—Albert Camus, 1951

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

—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1983

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

—James Howell, 1659

Revolutions have never lightened the burden of tyranny, they have only shifted it to another shoulder.

—George Bernard Shaw, 1903

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

—Duke of Wellington, c. 1819

Revolutions are not made by men in spectacles.

—Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1871

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

The spirit of revolution, the spirit of insurrection, is a spirit radically opposed to liberty.

—François Guizot, 1830

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

—Havelock Ellis, 1921