Maximilien Robespierre Quotes

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• 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.

  255 Copy quote

• The king must die so that the country can live.

  Maximilien Robespierre

  Country, Kings, Dies

  107 Copy quote

• To punish the oppressors of humanity is clemency; to forgive them is cruelty.

  Maximilien Robespierre

  Humanity, Forgiving, Clemency

  142 Copy quote

• Softness to traitors will destroy us all.

  Maximilien Robespierre

  Traitor, Softness

  108 Copy quote

• Omelets are not made without breaking eggs.

  Maximilien Robespierre

  Eggs, Breaking Eggs, Made

  47 Copy quote

• Terror is only justice: prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country.

  Maximilien Robespierre

  Country, Evil, Justice

  125 Copy quote

• Any law which violates the inalienable rights of man is essentially unjust and tyrannical; it is not a law at all.

  Maximilien Robespierre

  Freedom, Men, Rights

  'Dèclaration des droits de l'homme' 24 April 1793, article 6; this article, in slightly different form, is recorded as having figured in Robespierre's Projet of 21 April 1793

  131 Copy quote

• We must smother the internal and external enemies of the Republic or perish with it; now in this situation, the first maxim of your policy ought to be to lead the people by reason and the people's enemies by terror.

  Maximilien Robespierre

  People, Enemy, Firsts

  Speech to the National Convention, February 05, 1794.

  94 Copy quote

• Terror is nothing more than justice, prompt, secure and inflexible.

  Maximilien Robespierre

  Justice, Terror, Secure

  78 Copy quote

• Citizens, did you want a revolution without revolution?

  Maximilien Robespierre

  Citizens, Want, Revolution

  Maximilien Robespierre (2007). “Virtue and Terror”, New Left Books

  90 Copy quote

• When a Banker jumps out of a window, jump after him - that's where the money is.

  Maximilien Robespierre

  Bankers, Window

  89 Copy quote

• Smuggle out the truth, pass it through all the obstacles that its enemies fabricate; multiply, spread by all means possible her message so that she may triumph; through zeal and civic action counterbalance the influence of money and the machinations lavished on the propagation of deception. That, in my opinion, is the most useful activity and the most sacred duty of pure patriotism.

  Maximilien Robespierre

  Mean, Enemy, Deception

  50 Copy quote

• 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

  93 Copy quote

• The most extravagant idea that can be born in the head of a political thinker is to believe that it suffices for people to enter, weapons in hand, among a foreign people and expect to have its laws and constitution embraced. No one loves armed missionaries; the first lesson of nature and prudence is to repulse them as enemies.

  Maximilien Robespierre

  Believe, Hands, Law

  "Sur la guerre". Speech to the Jacobin Club, January 02, 1792.

  108 Copy quote

• Peoples do not judge in the same way as courts of law; they do not hand down sentences, they throw thunderbolts; they do not condemn kings, they drop them back into the void; and this justice is worth just as much as that of the courts.

  Maximilien Robespierre

  Kings, Hands, Law

  Maximilien Robespierre (2007). “Virtue and Terror”, New Left Books

  73 Copy quote

• By sealing our work with our blood, we may see at least the bright dawn of universal happiness.

  Maximilien Robespierre

  Blood, Dawn, May

  "Speech to the National Convention". February 05, 1794.

  79 Copy quote

• Is it to be thought unreasonable that the people, in atonement for wrongs of a century, demand the vengeance of a single day?

  Maximilien Robespierre

  Revenge, People, Demand

  13 Copy quote

• It has been said that terror is the principle of despotic government. Does your government therefore resemble despotism? Yes, as the sword that gleams in the hands of the heroes of liberty resembles that with which the henchmen of tyranny are armed ... The government of the revolution is liberty's despotism against tyranny.

  Maximilien Robespierre

  Hero, Government, Hands

  "Political Scientism - Beware the Enlightened Ones" by Robin Koerner, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 2, 2017.

  61 Copy quote

• The aim of constitutional government is to preserve the Republic; that of revolutionary government is to lay its foundation.

  Maximilien Robespierre

  Government, Foundation, Republic

  Speech on Christmas in 1793. Quoted in "Who said Gaddafi had to go?" by Hugh Roberts, London Review of Books, Volume 33 No. 22, pp. 8-18, November 17, 2011.

  80 Copy quote

• 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

  64 Copy quote

• One can...never create [freedom] by an invading force.

  Maximilien Robespierre

  Peace, War, Force

  56 Copy quote

• Formerly, when a king died at Versailles the reign of his successor was immediately announced by the cry: "The king is dead, long live the king", in order to make it understood that despotism is immortal! Now an entire people, moved by a sublime instinct, cried: Long live the Republic! to teach the universe that tyranny died with the tyrant.

  Maximilien Robespierre

  Kings, Order, Tyrants

  54 Copy quote

• Food that is necessary for man’s existence is as sacred as life itself. Everything that is indispensable for its preservation is the common property of society as a whole. It is only the surplus that is private property and can be safely left to individual commercial enterprise.

  Maximilien Robespierre

  Men, Sacred, Common

  69 Copy quote

• Terror is nothing else than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible.

  Maximilien Robespierre

  Justice, Terror, Prompts

  "The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1923, Vol. 1". Book by Edward Hallett Carr, p. 154, Speech to the National Convention, (February 5, 1794), 1951.

  11 Copy quote

• No one loves armed missionaries; the first lesson of nature and prudence is to repulse them as enemies.

  Maximilien Robespierre

  One Love

  "Sur la guerre". Speech to the Jacobin Club, January 02, 1792.

  13 Copy quote

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