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, 1665Quotes
It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.
—Dolores Ibárruri, 1936An oppressed people are authorized, whenever they can, to rise and break their fetters.
—Henry Clay, 1842Revolution can never be forecast; it cannot be foretold; it comes of itself. Revolution is brewing and is bound to flare up.
—Vladimir Lenin, 1918The spirit of revolution, the spirit of insurrection, is a spirit radically opposed to liberty.
—François Guizot, 1830All civilization has from time to time become a thin crust over a volcano of revolution.
—Havelock Ellis, 1921Governments 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.
—Dionysius of Halicarnassus, c. 20 BCThe only justification of rebellion is success.
—Thomas B. Reed, 1878The 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