Accounts Quote by Hilary Mantel
“He is careful to deny responsibility for September, but he does not, you notice, condemn the killings. He also refrains from killing words, sparing Roland and Buzot, as if they were beneath his notice. August 10 was illegal, he says; so too was the taking of the Bastille. What account can we take of that, in revolution? It is the nature of revolutions to break laws. We are not justices of the peace; we are legislators to a new world.”
About This Quote
Source Novel: Wolf Hall, 2009
Revolutionaries break laws, yet they also create new legal orders, blurring moral responsibility.
In simple terms: Revolutions break rules and create new ones.
Key Takeaway
Recognize the moral ambiguity of upheaval.
Themes
politics
revolution
law
ethics
responsibility
Mood
reflective
historical
Type
philosophical
political
When to use this quote
- political activism
- legal reform
- social movements
Key Concepts
Legitimacy
power dynamics
historical cycles
Questions to Reflect On
- What responsibilities do revolutionaries bear?
- Can law be both broken and created?
A Different Perspective
Revolutionary actions can cause collateral harm; moral accountability may be diffuse.
![“[My wife] liked to collect old encyclopedias from second-hand bookstores, and at one point we had eight of them. When I wrote my first historical novel---back in 1980, before I was online---I used them often as a research tool. For instance, I learned that the Bastille was either 90 feet high or…” quote by Robert Anton Wilson](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/75d/robert-anton-wilson-1198_bastille_my-wife-liked-to-collect-old-encyclopedi_864543.jpg)
