Revolution begins in putting on bright colors.
—Tennessee Williams, 1944Quotes
Revolutions are celebrated when they are no longer dangerous.
—Pierre Boulez, 1989All men recognize the right of revolution, that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable.
—Henry David Thoreau, 1849I 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.
—Fidel Castro, 1959
Every revolution by force only puts more violent means of enslavement into the hands of the persons in power.
—Leo Tolstoy, 1893The 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, 1961Revolutionaries are greater sticklers for formality than conservatives.
—Italo Calvino, 1957Revolutions are always verbose.
—Leon Trotsky, 1933Revolutions are not made by men in spectacles.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1871