Edmund Burke Quotes

Revolutions of state, many times, make way for new institutions and forms; and often determine in either setting up some tyranny at home, or bringing in some conquest from abroad.

The passing of state power from one class to another is the first, the principal, the basic sign of a revolution, both in the strictly scientific and in the practical political meaning of that term.

Let us remember that revolutions do not always establish freedom.

Revolutions are the only political events which confront us directly and inevitably with the problem of beginning.

You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.

I was born in revolution.

You have to understand that to have a revolution when you are 18 years old is completely different from normal political leaders who were born in a democracy and will die in a democracy and never to have experienced that change. I have seen that change.

A reform is a correction of abuses; a revolution is a transfer of power.

The worst of revolutions is a restoration.

Just like in medicine, when the normal medicine no longer works, one resorts to surgery. And the revolutions is like the surgery: It's painful, and it's the last resort for nations.

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

When we overthrew Mubarak, we did this in 18 days. And because we were very naive and very unexperienced in revolutions, we thought that that was it. It is very difficult to imagine that you can actually get rid of a dictatorship that has been there for 60 years only in 18 days. So we were very naive.

Revolutions are not made with rosewater.

Only through perils and upheavals can Nations be brought to further developments. May the present upheavals lead to a better world.

In politics experiments mean revolutions.

Revolutions do not always establish freedom.

The National Revolution has begun.

This government must go. It is our duty to make sure that it does go.

Revolution is always delightful in the preliminary stages. So long as it's a question of getting rid of the people at the top.

Be not deceived. Revolutions do not go backward.

One man’s democratization is another man’s destabilization.

Without destruction of the State, there is no revolution.

If revolution insists upon overturning established order, let other peoples make the tragic experiment. There is no place for it in America.

The speed with which armies collapse, bureaucracies abdicate, and social structures dissolve once the autocrat is removed frequently surprises American Policy makers.

Revolutions begin with enthusiasm but often end in tears.