Revolutions are not made by men in spectacles.

All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the state.

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. 

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

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

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

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

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

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.