French revolution Quotes

The French revolution taught us the rights of man.

— Thomas Sankara

“Wine runs in your veins.”

— debra borchert

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

— Voltaire

Hunger whets everything, especially Suspicion and Indignation.

— Thomas Carlyle

The most lasting and universal consequence of the French revolution is the metric system

— Eric Hobsbawm

“People said— though this felt like a heresy— that they had seen Camille make Robespierre laugh.”

— Hilary Mantel

Tea, late dinners and the French Revolution. I cannot exactly see the connection of ideas.

— Thomas Love Peacock

“I can’t divide Camille’s loyalties. Who knows? He might make the wrong choice.”

— Hilary Mantel

The King did not summon the Estates because he needed them, but out of his own pleasure.

— Jacques Necker

The blood of criminals fertilises the soil of liberty.

— Joseph Fouche

Democracy, thus French revolution, was not invented by philosophic theory nor by the bourgeois leadership. It was discovered by the masses in…

— Raya Dunayevskaya

“In this new hall the factions regroup in their old places. Legendre the butcher bawls out a Brissotin: “I’ll slaughter you!” “First,”…

— Hilary Mantel

It [August 10th 1792] was the bloodiest day of the Revolution so far, but also one of the most decisive.

— William Doyle

“I'd heard him tell a woman who complained he never helped her achieve orgasm, that she should treasure the memory of her…

— André Aciman

“That's sort of what happened with Cassie and me. I guess I was Goya, just doing my thing, and she was the…

— Claire Messud

“The deepest cause which made the French Revolution so disastrous to liberty was its theory of equality. Liberty was the watchword of…

— Anonymous

What is this much repeated phrase 'active citizen' supposed to mean? The active citizens are the ones who took the Bastille.

— Camille Desmoulins

I shall make it my chief business to see that the [royal] executive power has its place in the constitution.

— Honore Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau

“All throughout the Christian ages, and especially since the French Revolution, the Western world has been haunted by the idea of freedom…

— George Orwell

“A lot of the left wants social change to look like the French Revolution or Che Guevara. Maybe changing the world is…

— Rebecca Solnit

“It’s all right for you, you and Danton. I have to go and stutter for two hours at the Jacobins and probably…

— Hilary Mantel

“Dissent and dissidence are overwhelmingly the work of the young. It is not by chance that the men and women who initiated…

— Tony Judt

I mean, already in the French Revolution, the harpsichord becomes identified with the aristocracy, with the ancien regime. Plus, hey, you know,…

— Mahan Esfahani

“The revolutionaries failed to institute the novel forms of social and political organization they hankered after; Workers would not accept a ten-day…

— Alan Ryan

“Who are the Brissotins? A good question. You see, if you accuse people of a crime (for example, and especially, conspiracy) and…

— Hilary Mantel

“Georges told me he would be back, and I have no reason to disbelieve him—but perhaps you’d like to sit down here…

— Hilary Mantel

Most observers of the French Revolution, especially the clever and noble ones, have explained it as a life-threatening and contagious illness. They…

— Novalis

“The prominent British statesman and scholar Edmund Burke (1729–1797) emphasized another fundamental characteristic of the civil society—valuing human experience, tradition, and custom.…

— Mark R. Levin

“To understand the rise of Christianity or the French Revolution, it is not enough to comprehend the interaction of genes, hormones and…

— Yuval Noah Harari

“...and I sometimes think that the fading out of the individual personality is what one should desire, not the status of a…

— Hilary Mantel

“It is a proof of the divergence of the tendencies of the socialist and the bourgeois pictures of history—and from now on…

— Edmund Wilson

Carla Hesse has given us an astonishing new look at women's struggle for independent expression and moral autonomy during the French Revolution…

— Natalie Zemon Davis

“Loving, of enemies is another dogma of feigned morality, and has besides no meaning. It is incumbent on man, as a moralist,…

— Thomas Paine

From the days of Spartacus, Weishophf, Karl Marx, Trotski, Belacoon, Rosa Luxenburg, and Ema Goldman, this world conspiracy has been steadily growing.…

— Winston Churchill

Here, the revolution was prepared. Here it was achieved. Here all the great events were fostered.

— Georges Couthon

“Of course I have had to rearrange the text a bit— bugger about with it, as Hébert would say.”

— Hilary Mantel

“There is death in the folds of her skirt and blood about her feet. She is for no man.”

— Joseph Conrad

“I want to make love to the French Revolution. Or maybe just get some head from Robespierre.”

— Jarod Kintz

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

— Maximilien Robespierre

“Gradually, you see, our people are coming into the power they have always thought is their due.”

— Hilary Mantel