Revolution begins in putting on bright colors.
—Tennessee Williams, 1944Quotes
Rebellion is no less a sin than divination.
—Book of Samuel, c. 550 BCAll civilization has from time to time become a thin crust over a volcano of revolution.
—Havelock Ellis, 1921This 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.
—Abraham Lincoln, 1861The 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.
—Victor Hugo, 1862All revolutions devour their own children.
—Ernst Röhm, 1933Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 63 BCThe children of the revolution are always ungrateful, and the revolution must be grateful that it is so.
—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1983Revolutions are celebrated when they are no longer dangerous.
—Pierre Boulez, 1989