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.

Governments 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.

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.

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.

I 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.

Revolutionaries are greater sticklers for formality than conservatives.

I have been ever of the opinion that revolutions are not to be evaded.

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

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