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Quotes

Revolutions are always verbose.

—Leon Trotsky, 1933

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

—Havelock Ellis, 1921

And then, sir, there is this consideration: that if the abuse be enormous, nature will rise up and, claiming her original rights, overturn a corrupt political system.

—Samuel Johnson, 1791

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

—Henry Clay, 1842

Revolutions are not about trifles, but they are produced by trifles. 

—Aristotle, c. 350 BC

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

—François Guizot, 1830

Revolutionaries are greater sticklers for formality than conservatives.

—Italo Calvino, 1957

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

Make the revolution a parent of settlement and not a nursery of future revolutions.

—Edmund Burke, 1790
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