Rebellion is no less a sin than divination.
—Book of Samuel, c. 550 BCQuotes
If not us, who? If not now, when?
—Czech slogan, 1989The 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, 1961Revolutions are always verbose.
—Leon Trotsky, 1933All revolutions devour their own children.
—Ernst Röhm, 1933Revolutions have never lightened the burden of tyranny, they have only shifted it to another shoulder.
—George Bernard Shaw, 1903All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the state.
—Albert Camus, 1951There 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, 1665Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made—through disobedience and through rebellion.
—Oscar Wilde, 1891