Revolutionary Quotes
We built your fort. We will not have it used against us.
John Wayne Allegheny Uprising
Restrictions of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of
all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most
easily defeat us.
William O. Douglas
The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's for which the sheep
thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces
him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the
sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.
Abraham Lincoln
The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution
was in the minds and hearts of the people. This radical change
in the principles, opinions, sentiments and affections of the
people was the real American Revolution.
John Adams
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent
revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy
Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of
others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny
ripple of hope...build(ing) a current that can sweep down the
mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
Robert F. Kennedy
Those who suppress freedom always do so in the name of law and order.
John V. Lindsay
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are
men who want rain without thunder and lightning.
Frederick Douglass
All civilization has from time to time become a thin crust over a
volcano of revolution.
Havelock Ellis
Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's
inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
Reinhold Niebuhr
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit
it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government,
they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or
their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.
Abraham Lincoln
The French Revolution of a hundred and fifty years ago gradually
ushered in an age of political equality, but the times have
changed, and that by itself is not enough today. The boundaries
of democracy have to be widened now so as to include economic
equality also. This is the great revolution through which we
are all passing.
Jawaharlal Nehru
If our economy of freedom fails to distribute wealth as ably as it has
created it, the road to dictatorship will be open to any man
who can persuasively promise security to all.
Will Durant
Any doctrine that weakens personal responsibility for judgement and
for action helps create the attitudes that welcome and support
the totalitarian state.
John Dewey
I call that mind free which jealously guards its intellectual rights
and powers, which calls no man master, which does not content
itself with a passive or hereditary faith, which opens itself
to light whencesoever it may come, which receives new truth as
an angel from Heaven.
William Ellery Channing
A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves.
Bertrand de Jouvenel
All the higher, more penetrating ideals are revolutionary. They
present themselves far less in the guise of effects of past
experience than in that of probable causes of future
experience.
William James
A regime, an established order, is rarely overthrown by a
revolutionary movement; usually a regime collapses of its own
weakness and corruption and then a revolutionary movement
enters among the ruins and takes over the powers that have
become vacant.
Walter Lippman
Government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit and
security of the people, nation or community; whenever any
government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these
purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable,
unalienable, indefeasible right, to reform, alter, or abolish
it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the
public Weal.
George Mason
You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You
must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.
G.K. Chesterton
Here in America we a descended in blood and in spirit from
revolutionists and rebels- men and women who dared to dissent
from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, we may never confuse
honest dissent with disloyal subversion.
Dwight Eisenhower
There is no substitute for a militant freedom.
Calvin Coolidge
He who would be free must strike the first blow.
Frederick Douglass
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.
Michel De Montaigne
There is a kind of revolution of so general a character that it
changes the tastes as well as the fortunes of the world.
La Rochefoucauld
The art of revolutionizing and overturning states is to undermine
established customs, by going back to their origin, in order to
mark their want of justice.
Blaise Pascal
Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the
property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under
arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with
the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further
obedience, and are left to the common refuge which God hath
provided for all men against force and violence.
John Locke
Everything I see about me is sowing the seeds of a revolution that is
inevitable, though I shall not have the pleasure of seeing it.
The lightning is so close at hand that it will strike at the
first chance, and then there will be a pretty uproar. The young
are fortunate, for they will see fine things.
Voltaire
The most sensible and jealous people are so little attentive to
government that there are no instances of resistance until
repeated, multiplied oppressions have placed it beyond a doubt
that their rulers had formed settled plans to deprive them of
their liberties; not to oppress an individual or a few, but to
break down the fences of a free constitution, and deprive the
people at large of all share in the government, and all the
checks by which it is limited.
John Adams
It is an observation of one of the profoundest inquirers into human
affairs that a revolution of government is the strongest proof
that can be given by a people of their virtue and good sense.
John Adams
To dare: that is the whole secret of revolutions.
Antoine Saint-Just
An oppressed people are authorized whenever they can to rise and break
their fetters.
Henry Clay
Wherever a man comes, there comes revolution. The old is for slaves.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The
proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a
world to win. Working men of all countries, unite!
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
All men recognize the right of revolution: that is, the right to
refuse allegiance to, or to resist, the government when its
tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable.
Henry David Thoreau
Insurgents are like conquerors: they must go forward. The moment they
are stopped they are lost.
Wellington
Revolutions are not made: they come. A revolution is as natural a
growth as an oak. It comes out of the past. Its foundations are
laid far back.
Wendell Phillips
Revolutions never go backwards.
William Henry Steward
The French revolution was a machine invented and constructed for the
purpose of manufacturing liberty; but it had neither lever
cogs, nor adjusting powers, and the consequences were that it
worked so rapidly that it destroyed its own inventors, and set
itself on fire.
C.C. Colton
Great revolutions, whatever may be their causes, are not lightly
commenced, and are not concluded with precipitation.
Benjamin Disraeli
A reform is a correction of abuses; a revolution is a transfer of
power.
E.G. Bulwer-Lytton
Whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty
manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are
ineffectual, the people may, and of a right ought to reform the
old, or establish a new government; the doctrine of
non-resistance against arbitrary power and oppression is
absurd, slavish and destructive of the good and happiness of
mankind.
Declaration of Rights, Maryland
There are but three ways for the populace to escape its wretched lot.
The first two are by the routes of the wine-shop or the church;
the third is by that of the social revolution.
M.A. Bakunin
Revolutions are not made by men in spectacles.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Revolutions are not made with rosewater.
E.G. Bulwer-Lytton
It is not the insurrections of ignorance that are dangerous, but the
revolts of intelligence.
James Russell Lowell
The right to revolution is an inherent one. When people are oppressed
by their government, it is a natural right they enjoy to
relieve themselves of the oppression, if they are strong
enough, either by withdrawal from it, or by overthrowing it and
substituting a government more acceptable.
U.S. Grant
Revolutions can no longer be achieved by minorities. No matter how
energetic and intelligent a minority may be, it is not enough,
in modern times at least, to make a revolution. The cooperation
of a majority, and a large majority too, is needed.
Jean Jaures
One of the chief symptoms of every revolution is the sharp and sudden
increase in the number of ordinary people who take an active,
independent and forceful interest in politics.
Nikolai Lenin
It is impossible to predict the time and progress of revolution. It is
governed by its own more or less mysterious laws. But when it
comes it moves irresistibly.
Nikolai Lenin
We must enter and take possession of the consciences of the children,
of the consciences of the young, because they do belong, and
should belong to the revolution.
Plutarco Calles
Those who are inclined to compromise can never make a revolution.
Kemal Ataturk
He that accepts protection, stipulates obedience. We have always
protected the Americans; we may therefore subject them to
government.
Samuel Johnson
If there was ever a just war since the world began, it is this in
which America is now engaged.
Thomas Paine
I desired as many as could to join together in fasting and prayer,
that God would restore the spirit of love and of a sound mind
to the poor deluded rebels in America.
John Wesley
If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop
was landed in my country I never would lay down my arms,-
never! never! never!
William Pitt
The American Revolution was a vindication of liberties inherited and
possessed. It was a conservative revolution.
William E. Gladstone
Who draws his sword against his prince must throw away the scabbard.
James Howell
Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
Thomas Jefferson
My call is the call of battle- I nourish active rebellion;/ He going
with me must go well armed.
Walt Whitman
Disobedience in the eyes of any one 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
Disobedience, the rarest and most courageous of the virtues, is seldom
distinguished from neglect, the laziest and commonest of the
vices.
George Bernard Shaw
Tyranny brings ignorance and brutality with it. It degrades men from
their just rank into the class of brutes; it damps their
spirits; it suppresses art; it extinguishes every spark of
noble ardor and generosity in the breasts of those who are
enslaved by it; it makes naturally strong and great minds
feeble and little, and triumphs over the ruins of virtue and
humanity.
Jonathan Mayhew
No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it.
Samuel Johnson
Some boast of being friends to government; I am a friend to righteous
government, to a government founded upon the principles of
reason and justice; but I glory in publicly avowing my eternal
enmity to tyranny.
John Hancock
The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it.
John Hay
It is lawful and hath been held so through all ages for any one who
have the power to call to account a tyrant or wicked king, and
after due conviction to depose and put him to death.
John Milton
If a sovereign oppresses his people to a degree they will rise and cut
off his head. There is a remedy in human nature against tyranny
that will keep us safe under every form of government.
Samuel Johnson
'Twixt kings and tyrants there's this difference known;/ Kings seek
their subjects' good: tyrants their own.
Robert Herrick
The mob is easily led and may be moved by the smallest force, so that
its agitations have a wonderful resemblance to those of the
sea.
Polybius
The common people suffer when the powerful disagree.
Phaedrus
Do not wonder if the common people speak more truly than those above
them: they speak more safely.
Francis Bacon
Do not be too severe upon the errors of the people, but reclaim them
by enlightening them.
Thomas Jefferson
The people are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our
liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are
our dependence for continued freedom.
Thomas Jefferson
The welfare of the people is the supreme law.
Motto of Missouri
In your dread of dictators you established a state of society in which
every ward boss is a dictator, every private employer a
dictator, every financier a dictator, all with the livelihood
of the workers at his mercy, and no public responsibility.
George Bernard Shaw
It is the old practice of despots to use a part of the people to keep
the rest in order.
Thomas Jefferson
Arbitrary rule has its basis, not in the strength of the state or the
chief, but in the moral weakness of the individual, who submits
almost without resistance to the domineering power.
Friedrich Hatzel
Despotism has forever had a powerful hold upon the world. Autocratic
government, not self-government, has been the prevailing state
of mankind. The record of past history is the record, not of
the success of republics, but of their failure.
Calvin Coolidge
It violates right order whenever capital so employs the working or
wage-earning classes as to divert business and economic
activity entirely to its own arbitrary will and advantage,
without any regard to the human dignity of the workers, the
social character of economic life, social justice, and the
common good.
Pope Pius XI
The foundation on which (our government is) built is the natural
equality of man, the denial of every pre-eminence but that
annexed to legal office, and particularly the denial of a
pre-eminence by birth.
Thomas Jefferson
When the government violates the people's rights, insurrection is, for
the people and for each portion of the people, the most sacred
of rights and the most indispensable of duties.
Marquis De Lafayette
Revolution is the larva of civilization.
Victor Hugo
General rebellions and revolts of a whole people never were encouraged
now or at any time. They are always provoked.
Edmuns Burke
It is only by instigation of the wrongs of men that what we call the
rights of men become turbulent and dangerous.
James Russell Lowell
Revolutions are like the most noxious dungheaps, which bring into life
the noblest vegetables.
Napoleon
When all other rights are taken away, the right of rebellion is made
perfect.
Thomas Paine
Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the
Third may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the
most of it.
Patrick Henry
None but tyrants have any business to be afraid.
Hardouin de Perefixe
He who strikes terror into others is himself in continual fear.
Claudian
Tyrants have not yet discovered any chains that can fetter the mind.
Colton
There is something about men more capable of shaking despotic power
than lightening, whirlwind, or earthquake, that is, the
threatened indignation of the whole civilized world.
Daniel Webster
Anarchy is the sure consequence of tyranny; for no power that is not
limited by laws can ever be protected by them.
John Milton
One sharp, stern struggle, and the slaves of centuries are free.
George Massey
The bigger a state becomes the more liberty diminishes.
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Every generation must wage a new war for freedom against new forces
which seek through new devices to enslave mankind.
Progressive Party Platform
The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.
Edmund Burke
Tyrants are always assassinated too late. That is their great excuse.
E.M. Cioran
There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to
conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the
lead in the introduction of a new order of things.
Machiavelli
Archimedes' Cockpit | Democracy Wall
