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Quotes

Revolutions are not made by men in spectacles.

—Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1871

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. 

—Frantz Fanon, 1961

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

—Henry Clay, 1842

If not us, who? If not now, when?

—Czech slogan, 1989

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

—Duke of Wellington, c. 1819

The surest guide to the correctness of the path that women take is joy in the struggle. Revolution is the festival of the oppressed.

—Germaine Greer, 1970

Revolutions are always verbose.

—Leon Trotsky, 1933

The only justification of rebellion is success.

—Thomas B. Reed, 1878

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

—Hannah Arendt, 1970
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