Revolution can never be forecast; it cannot be foretold; it comes of itself. Revolution is brewing and is bound to flare up.
—Vladimir Lenin, 1918Quotes
The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal.
—Erich Fromm, 1941Revolution begins in putting on bright colors.
—Tennessee Williams, 1944The 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 have never lightened the burden of tyranny, they have only shifted it to another shoulder.
—George Bernard Shaw, 1903All civilization has from time to time become a thin crust over a volcano of revolution.
—Havelock Ellis, 1921The only justification of rebellion is success.
—Thomas B. Reed, 1878Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
—Benjamin Franklin, 1776There 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, 1665