French Revolution Quotes

• The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.

  Maximilien Robespierre

  Lying, Tyrants, People

  "Oeuvres". Volume 2, p. 253, 1840.

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• He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Attitude, Fear, War

  60 Copy quote

• The French Revolution is the ultimate modernist statement. Destroy everything. Don't build on the past. There is no past.

  John Corigliano

  Past, Revolution, Ultimate

  "The Gospel According To John Corigliano". Interview with Frank J. Oteri, www.newmusicbox.org. February 1, 2005.

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• It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

  Charles Dickens

  Spring, Communication, Winter

  A Tale of Two Cities bk. 1, ch. 1 (1859)

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• Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Witty, Funny Inspirational, Business

  "The Military Quotation Book" by James Charlton, (p. 93), 2002.

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• The French revolution taught us the rights of man.

  Thomas Sankara

  Men, Rights, Taught Us

  Thomas Sankara (2007). “Somos herederos de las revoluciones del Mundo: Discursos de la revolución de Burkina Faso, 1983-87”

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• It is the height of stupidity to claim that men who for a thousand years have had the power to berate us, to fleece us and to oppress us with impunity, will now agree, with good grace, to be our equals.

  Jean-Paul Marat

  Men, Years, Stupidity

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• The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes. Change is the one quality we can predicate of it. The systems that fail are those that rely on the permanency of human nature, and not on its growth and development. The error of Louis XIV was that he thought human nature would always be the same. The result of his error was the French Revolution. It was an admirable result.

  Oscar Wilde

  Nature, Errors, Growth

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde”, p.1062, Wordsworth Editions

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• One must never compromise with tyrants. One can only strike at kings through the head. Nothing can be expected from European kings except by force of arms. I vote for the death of the tyrant.

  Georges Danton

  Kings, Tyrants, Arms

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• Terror is only justice: prompt, severe and inflexible. It is then an emanation of virtue.

  Maximilien Robespierre

  Justice, Revolution, Virtue

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• Any institution which does not suppose the people good, and the magistrate corruptible, is evil.

  Maximilien Robespierre

  Umpires, People, Evil

  'Dèclaration des droits de l'homme' 24 April 1793, article 25

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• I shall die in the belief that to make France free, republican and prosperous, a little ink would have sufficed - and only one guillotine.

  Camille Desmoulins

  Ink, Littles, France

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• Nothing will make me change my principles. Even with the knife at my neck I shall still declare, up to this day, the poor have done everything; it is time for the rich to take their turn... The selfish people, the young idlers, must be made useful, whether they like it or not, and some respite be procured for the useful and respectable worker.

  Jean-Paul Marat

  Selfish, Knives, People

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• Superstition sets the whole world in flames, but philosophy douses them.

  Voltaire

  Philosophy, Flames, World

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• It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

  Charles Dickens

  Inspirational, Time, Cities

  A Tale of Two Cities bk. 1, ch. 1 (1859)

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• Among the lessons taught by the French revolution, there is none sadder or more striking than this--that you may make everything else out of the passions of men except a political system that will work, and that there is nothing so pitilessly and unconsciously cruel as sincerity formulated into dogma.

  James Russell Lowell

  Passion, Men, Political

  James Russell Lowell (2015). “Abraham Lincoln”, p.10, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• The rich are only defeated when running for their lives.

  C. L. R. James

  Change, Running, Revolutionary War

  C L R James (2001). “The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution”, p.116, Penguin UK

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• The revolution is the war of liberty against its enemies. The constitution is the rule of liberty against its enemies. The constitution is the rule of liberty when victorious and peaceable.

  Maximilien Robespierre

  War, Enemy, Liberty

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• I had been brought up in a church which decides everything and permits no doubts, so that having rejected one article of faith I was forced to reject the rest.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Doubt, Church, Revolution

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau (2013). “Emile”, p.276, Courier Corporation

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• This is the end and the beginning of an age. This is something far greater than the French Revolution or the Reformation and we live in it.

  H. G. Wells

  War, Age, Revolution

  H. G. Wells (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of H. G. Wells”, p.5437, Delphi Classics

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• We need the real, nation-wide terror which reinvigorates the country and through which the Great French Revolution achieved glory.

  Vladimir Lenin

  Country, Real, Needs

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• The French Revolution gave us three... powerful ideas, or concepts - liberty, equality and fraternity. But these ideas... are not only right in themselves, but they are so because they come in the proper order. You cannot have equality without liberty, and you certainly cannot have fraternity without equality. The importance of this I learnt from music, because music evolves in time, and therefore the order inevitably determines the content.

  Daniel Barenboim

  Powerful, Order, Ideas

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• When a people, having become free, establish wise laws, their revolution is complete... Peace and prosperity, public virtue, victory, everything is in the vigor of the laws. Outside of the laws, everything is sterile and dead.

  Louis Antoine de Saint-Just

  Wise, Law, People

  Louis Antoine de Saint-Just's remarks on autumn 1792, as quoted in "Oeuvres Completes de Saint-Just", Volume 1, edited by Charles Vellay, 1908.

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• The "terror" of the French Revolution lasted for ten years. The terror that preceded and led to it lasted for a thousand years.

  Edward Abbey

  Positive, Years, Atheism

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.21, RosettaBooks

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• Justice has its anger, my lord Bishop, and the wrath of justice is an element of progress. Whatever else may be said of it, the French Revolution was the greatest step forward by mankind since the coming of Christ. It was unfinished, I agree, but still it was sublime. It released the untapped springs of society; it softened hearts, appeased, tranquilized, enlightened, and set flowing through the world the tides of civilization. It was good. The French Revolution was the anointing of humanity.

  Victor Hugo

  Spring, Heart, Civilization

  Victor Hugo (1980). “Les misérables”, Viking Pr

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