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.

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.

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.

Revolution: An abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.

In this Revolution no plans have been written for retreat.

If not us, who? If not now, when?

I have been ever of opinion that revolutions are not to be evaded.

Revolutions are not made by men in spectacles.

Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.

We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: change prepares the ground for revolution.