“Societies in decline have no use for visionaries.”
“Even the strongest blizzards start with a single snowflake.”
“The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
“Ask for work. If they don t give you work, ask for bread. If they do not give you work or bread, then take bread.”
“There is no final one; revolutions are infinite.”
“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.”
“But I suppose the most revolutionary act one can engage in is... to tell the truth.”
“It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.”
“We are sorry for the inconvenience, but this is a revolution.”
“Just because something bears the aspect of the inevitable one should not, therefore, go along willingly with it.”
“True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity. False charity constrains the fearful and subdued, the rejects of life, to extend their trembling hands. True generosity lies in striving so that these hands--whether of individuals or entire peoples--need be extended less and less in supplication, so that more and more they become human hands which work and, working, transform the world.”
“The educated ones leave, the ones with the potential to right the wrongs. They leave the weak behind. The tyrants continue to reign because the weak cannot resist. Do you not see that it is a cycle? Who will break that cycle?”
“There s one hole in every revolution, large or small. And it s one word long— PEOPLE. No matter how big the idea they all stand under, people are small and weak and cheap and frightened. It s people that kill every revolution.”
“Give us what belongs to us in peace, and if you don t give it to us in peace, we will take it by force.”
“Happiness was useless to me. It was heartache that filled my purse. What happy man has need of Shakespeare?”
“The situation is like this: they hired our parents to destroy this world, and now they d like to put us to work rebuilding it, and -- to add insult to injury -- at a profit.”
“Basically, if you re not a utopianist, you re a schmuck.”