Revolutions and Revolutionaries Quotes
The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations. This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Adams, John
1735-1826 Second President of the USA
I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Adams, John
1735-1826 Second President of the USA
The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Arendt, Hannah
1906-1975 German-born American Political Philosopher
In revolutions the occasions may be trifling but great interest are at stake.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Aristotle
BC 384-322 Greek Philosopher
Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals that they may be superior. Such is the state of mind which creates revolutions.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Aristotle
BC 384-322 Greek Philosopher
Thinkers prepare the revolution and bandits carry it out.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Azuela, Mariano
1873-1952 Mexican Novelist
Revolution begins with the self, in the self.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Bambara, Toni Cade
1959 American Writer
Revolution is an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Bierce, Ambrose
1842-1914 American Author Editor Journalist The Devil's Dictionary
So they united, and the Communist revolution took the chain from their legs and wound it around their necks.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Bonom, Samuel
I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with Blood.
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Brown, John Mason
1800-1859 American Militant Abolitionist
Men are made uneasy; they flinch; they cannot bear the sudden light; a general restlessness supervenes; the face of society is disturbed, or perhaps convulsed; old interests and old beliefs have been destroyed before new ones have been created. These symptoms are the precursors of revolution; they have preceded all the great changes through which the world has passed.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Buckle, Henry Thomas
1821-1862 British Historian
I had such a wonderful feeling last night, walking beneath the dark sky while cannon boomed on my right and guns on my left the feeling that I could change the world only by being there.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Butnariu, Viorica
The dead have been awakened -- shall I sleep? The world s at war with tyrants -- shall I crouch? the harvest s ripe -- and shall I pause to reap? I slumber not; the thorn is in my couch; Each day a trumpet soundeth in mine ear, its echo in my heart.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Byron, Lord
1788-1824 British Poet
Revolution, in order to be creative, cannot do without either a moral or metaphysical rule to balance the insanity of history.
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Camus, Albert
1913-1960 French Existential Writer
Every revolutionary ends up by becoming either an oppressor or a heretic.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Camus, Albert
1913-1960 French Existential Writer
More and more, revolution has found itself delivered into the hands of its bureaucrats and doctrinaires on the one hand, and to the enfeebled and bewildered masses on the other.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Camus, Albert
1913-1960 French Existential Writer
A revolution is not a bed of roses. A revolution is a struggle between the future and the past.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Castro, Fidel
1927 Cuban Revolutionary Prime Minister President
I feel my belief in sacrifice and struggle getting stronger. I despise the kind of existence that clings to the miserly trifles of comfort and self-interest. I think that a man should not live beyond the age when he begins to deteriorate, when the flame that lighted the brightest moment of his life has weakened.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Castro, Fidel
1927 Cuban Revolutionary Prime Minister President
I began revolution with 82 men. If I had [To] do it again, I do it with 10 or 15 and absolute faith. It does not matter how small you are if you have faith and plan of action.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Castro, Fidel
1927 Cuban Revolutionary Prime Minister President
You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.
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Chesterton, Gilbert K.
1874-1936 British Author
The scrupulous and the just, the noble, humane, and devoted natures; the unselfish and the intelligent may begin a movement -- but it passes away from them. They are not the leaders of a revolution. They are its victims.
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Conrad, Joseph
1857-1924 Polish-born British Novelist
The revolutionary spirit is mighty convenient in this, that it frees one from all scruples as regards ideas. Its hard absolute optimism is repulsive to my mind by the menace of fanaticism and intolerance it contains. No doubt one should smile at these things; but, imperfect Esthete, I am no better Philosopher. All claim to special righteousness awakens in me that scorn and anger from which a philosophical mind should be free.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Conrad, Joseph
1857-1924 Polish-born British Novelist
Clemency is also a revolutionary measure.
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Desmoulins, Camille
1760-1794 French Journalist Revolutionary Leader
Our cause is just. Our union is perfect.
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Dickinson, John
Disturbances in society are never more fearful than when those who are stirring up the trouble can use the pretext of religion to mask their true designs.
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Diderot, Denis
1713-1784 French Philosopher
I have been ever of opinion that revolutions are not to be evaded.
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Disraeli, Benjamin
1804-1881 British Statesman Prime Minister
Normal life cannot sustain revolutionary attitudes for long.
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Djilas, Milovan
1911-1995 Former Yugoslav Vice-president
Plots, true or false, are necessary things, to raise up commonwealths, and ruin kings.
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Dryden, John
1631-1700 British Poet Dramatist Critic
Every revolution was first a thought in one man’s mind.
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Emerson, Ralph Waldo
1803-1882 American Poet Essayist
If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the new stand side by side, and admit of being compared; when the energies of all men are searched by fear and by hope; when the historic glories of the old can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era?
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
1803-1882 American Poet Essayist
To be a revolutionary you have to be human being. You have to care about people who have no power.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Fonda, Jane
1937 American Screen Actor
The worst of revolutions is a restoration.
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Fox, Charles James
1749-1806 British Statesman Foreign Secretary
The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Fromm, Erich
1900-1980 American Psychologist
All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door. The violence of revolutions is the violence of men who charge into a vacuum.
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Galbraith, John Kenneth
1908 American Economist
A revolution does not last more than fifteen years, the period which coincides with the flourishing of a generation.
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Gasset, Jose Ortega Y
1883-1955 Spanish Essayist Philosopher
The main object of a revolution is the liberation of man... not the interpretation and application of some transcendental ideology.
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Genet, Jean
1910-1986 French Playwright Novelist
A great revolution is never the fault of the people, but of the government.
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Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von
1749-1832 German Poet Dramatist Novelist
The surest guide to the correctness of the path that women take is joy in the struggle. Revolution is the festival of the oppressed.
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Greer, Germaine
1939 Australian Feminist Writer
The children of the revolution are always ungrateful, and the revolution must be grateful that it is so.
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Guin, Ursula K. Le
1929 American Author
The spirit of revolution, the spirit of insurrection, is a spirit radically opposed to liberty.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Guizot, Francois (Pierre Guillaume)
1787-1874 French Historian and Statesman
When people contend for their liberty they seldom get anything for their victory, but new masters.
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Halifax, Edward F.
1881-1959 British Conservative Statesman
True revolutionaries are like God -- they create the world in their own image. Our awesome responsibility to ourselves, to our children, and to the future is to create ourselves in the image of goodness, because the future depends on the nobility of our imaginings.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Harrison, Barbara Grizzuti
1941 American Author Publicist
Whether a revolutions succeeds or fails people of great hearts will always be sacrificed to it.
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Heine, Heinrich
1797-1856 German Poet Journalist
We have wasted our spirit in the regions of the abstract and general just as the monks let it wither in the world of prayer and contemplation.
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Herzen, Alexander
1812-1870 Russian Journalist Political Thinker
The main effect of a real revolution is perhaps that it sweeps away those who do not know how to wish, and brings to the front men with insatiable appetites for action, power and all that the world has to offer.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Hoffer, Eric
1902-1983 American Author Philosopher
We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: change prepares the ground for revolution.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Hoffer, Eric
1902-1983 American Author Philosopher
I was probably the only revolutionary referred to as cute.
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Hoffman, Abbie
1936-1989 American Radical Activist Author
Revolutions are not made by men in spectacles.
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Holmes, Oliver Wendell
1809-1894 American Author Wit Poet
He that goeth about to persuade a multitude that they are not so well governed as they ought to be shall never want attentive and favorable hearers.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Hooker, Richard
1554-1600 British Theologian
The brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over we realize this: that the human race has been roughly handled, but that it has advanced.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Hugo, Victor
1802-1885 French Poet Dramatist Novelist
If we glance at the most important revolutions in history, we see at once that the greatest number of these originated in the periodical revolutions of the human mind.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von
1767-1835 German Statesman Philologist
History teaches us that the great revolutions aren t started by people who are utterly down and out, without hope and vision. They take place when people begin to live a little better -- and when they see how much yet remains to be achieved.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Humphrey, Hubert H.
1911-1978 American Democratic Politician Vice President
Oh, my friend, it s not what they take away from you that counts -- it s what you do with what you have left.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Humphrey, Hubert H.
1911-1978 American Democratic Politician Vice President
Never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Ibsen, Henrik
1828-1906 Norwegian Dramatist
A man may build himself a throne of bayonets, but he can t sit on it.
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Inge, Dean William R.
1860-1954 Dean of St Paul's London
Revolutions are notorious for allowing even non-participants -- even women! -- new scope for telling the truth since they are themselves such massive moments of truth, moments of such massive participation.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
James, Selma
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Jefferson, Thomas
1743-1826 Third President of the USA
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.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Johnson, Samuel
1709-1784 British Author
Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.
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Kafka, Franz
1883-1924 German Novelist Short-Story Writer
Although a system may cease to exist in the legal sense or as a structure of power, its values (or anti-values), its philosophy, its teachings remain in us. They rule our thinking, our conduct, our attitude to others. The situation is a demonic paradox: we have toppled the system but we still carry its genes.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Kapuscinski, Ryszard
1932 Polish Report and Foreign Correspondent
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Kennedy, John F.
1917-1963 Thirty-fifth President of the USA
Revolutions are not made for export.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Khrushchev, Nikita
1894-1971 Soviet Premier
The more there are riots, the more repressive actin will take place, and the more we face the danger of a right-wing takeover and eventually a fascist society.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
King Jr. Martin Luther
1929-1968 American Black Leader Nobel Prize Winner 1964
Riots are the voices of the unheard.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
King Jr. Martin Luther
1929-1968 American Black Leader Nobel Prize Winner 1964
In this Revolution no plans have been written for retreat.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
King Jr. Martin Luther
1929-1968 American Black Leader Nobel Prize Winner 1964
You cannot make a revolution in white gloves.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich
1870-1924 Russian Revolutionary Leader
Revolutionary politics, revolutionary art, and oh, the revolutionary mind, is the dullest thing on earth. When we open a revolutionary review, or read a revolutionary speech, we yawn our heads off. It is true, there is nothing else. Everything is correctly, monotonously, dishearteningly revolutionary. What a stupid word! What a stale fuss!
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Lewis, Wyndham
1882-1957 British Author Painter
Revolution today is taken for granted, and in consequence becomes rather dull.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Lewis, Wyndham
1882-1957 British Author Painter
At the crash of economic collapse of which the rumblings can already be heard, the sleeping soldiers of the proletariat will awake as at the fanfare of the Last Judgment and the corpses of the victims of the struggle will arise and demand an accounting from those who are loaded down with curses.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Liebknecht, Karl
It is easier to run a revolution than a government.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Marcos, Ferdinand E.
1917-1989 Philippines Statesman President
Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose, but their chains. .Workers of the world unite!
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Marx, Karl
1818-1883 German Political Theorist Social Philosopher
In every revolution there intrude, at the side of its true agents, men of a different stamp; some of them survivors of and devotees to past revolutions, without insight into the present movement, but preserving popular influence by their known honesty and courage, or by the sheer force of tradition; others mere brawlers, who, by dint of repeating year after year the same set of stereotyped declamations against the government of the day, have sneaked into the reputation of revolutionists of the first water They are an unavoidable evil: with time they are shaken off.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Marx, Karl
1818-1883 German Political Theorist Social Philosopher
Revolutions are brought about by men, by men who think as men of action and act as men of thought.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Nkrumah, Kwame
Leader of Ghana's fight for Independence
Most revolutionaries are potential Tories, because they imagine that everything can be put right by altering the shape of society; once that change is effected, as it sometimes is, they see no need for any other.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Orwell, George
1903-1950 British Author Animal Farm
Revolutions are not made, they come.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Phillips, Wendell
1811-1884 American Reformer Orator
Revolutions never go backward.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Phillips, Wendell
1811-1884 American Reformer Orator
The excessive increase of anything causes a reaction in the opposite direction.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Plato
BC 427-347 Greek Philosopher
The word revolution itself has become not only a dead relic of Leftism, but a key to the deadendedness of male politics: the revolution of a wheel which returns in the end to the same place; the revolving door of a politics which has liberated women only to use them, and only within the limits of male tolerance.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Rich, Adrienne
1929 American Poet
One revolution is like one cocktail, it just gets you organized for the next.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Rogers, Will
1879-1935 American Humorist Actor
All revolutions devour their own children.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Rohm, Ernst
The differences between revolution in art and revolution in politics are enormous. Revolution in art lies not in the will to destroy but in the revelation of what has already been destroyed. Art kills only the dead.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Rosenberg, Harold
1906-1978 American Art Critic Author
No one makes a revolution by himself; and there are some revolutions which humanity accomplishes without quite knowing how, because it is everybody who takes them in hand.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Sand, George
1804-1876 French Novelist
Revolutions have never lightened the burden of tyranny: they have only shifted it to another shoulder.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Shaw, George Bernard
1856-1950 Irish-born British Dramatist
A nation grown free in a single day is a child born with the limbs and the vigor of a man, who would take a drawn sword for his rattle, and set the house in a blaze that he might chuckle over the splendor.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Smith, Sydney
1771-1845 British Writer Clergyman
Revolution is a trivial shift in the emphasis of suffering.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Stoppard, Tom
1937 Czech Playwright
If you want a symbolic gesture, don t burn the flag, wash it.
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Thomas, Norman
1884-1968 American Socialist Leader
In a revolution, as in a novel. the most difficult part to invent is the end.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Tocqueville, Alexis De
1805-1859 French Social Philosopher
It is almost never when a state of things is the most detestable that it is smashed, but when, beginning to improve, it permits men to breathe, to reflect, to communicate their thoughts with each other, and to gauge by what they already have the extent of their rights and their grievances. The weight, although less heavy, seems then all the more unbearable.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Tocqueville, Alexis De
1805-1859 French Social Philosopher
Revolutions are always verbose.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Trotsky, Leon
1879-1940 Russian Revolutionary
Every successful revolution puts on in time the robes of the tyrant it has deposed.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Tuchman, Barbara
1912-1989 American Historian
On the first day of a revolution he is a treasure; on the second he ought to be shot.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Unknown, Source
If not us, who? If not now, when?
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Unknown, Source
People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive in the refusal of constraints, such people have a corpse in their mouth.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Vaneigem, Raoul
1934 Belgian Situationist Philosopher
Independence in the end is the fruit of injustice.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Voltaire
1694-1778 French Historian Writer
All partisan movements add to the fullness of our understanding of society as a whole. They never detract; or, in any case, one must not allow them to do so. Experience adds to experience.
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Walker, Alice
1944 American Author Critic
You said, They re harmless dreamers and they re loved by the people. -- What, I asked you, is harmless about a dreamer, and what, I asked you, is harmless about the love of the people? Revolution only needs good dreamers who remember their dreams.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Williams, Tennessee
1914-1983 American Dramatist
A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Zedong, Mao
1893-1976 Founder of Chinese Communist State