Barbara Tuchman Quotes

What has commonly been called rebellion has more often been nothing but a glorious struggle in opposition to the lawless power of rebellious kings and princes

It is authority that provokes revolution....

No dictator can last forever. History shows that in the end, people around the dictator bring about change. Of course, a lot of high-ranking officials don't want change because they want to keep power. But there are other good people who want change. I believe they are waiting for the chance.

Revolutions have never lightened the burden of tyranny; they have only shifted it to another shoulder.

Every revolution, bloody or not, has two phases. The first phase is defined by the struggle for freedom, the second by the struggle for power and revenge on the votaries of the ancien regime.

There is no middle course between the throne and the scaffold.

Old forms of government finally grow so oppressive, that they must be thrown off even at the risk of reigns of terror.

Power is never so overwhelming that there's no room for resistance.

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

Everywhere that freedom stirs, let tyrants fear.

Fight the power that be. Fight the power.

In revolutions authority remains with the greatest scoundrels.

Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

I beheld absolutism in all its power; and I felt encouraged to enter into a struggle against Augustin I.

Do you trust the government? No? In that case, let’s overthrow it tomorrow.

If officials are too forceful, people will revolt.

“Order prevails in Berlin!” You foolish lackeys! Your “order” is built on sand. Tomorrow the revolution will “rise up again, clashing its weapons,” and to your horror it will proclaim with trumpets blazing: I was, I am, I shall be!

Tyranny may precipitate a revolutionary movement at any time.

No one can go on being a rebel too long without becoming an autocrat.

Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny, yet is itself pregnant with tyranny

Revolutions do not always establish freedom.

The tyrant dies and his rule is over; the martyr dies and his rule begins.

Insurrection is the exclusive right of the people and of the citizen. Every foreigner, every man clothed with public authority, is outlawed if he proposes it and must be put to death as a usurper of sovereignty and as interested in fomenting troubles for the purpose of doing evil or of adorning himself. Insurrections taking place under a despotism are always salutary. Those which break out in a free state are sometimes dangerous for liberty itself, because the revolt usurps its sublime pretexts and its sacred name. Revolts in free states leave long and painful wounds which bleed a whole century.

Agitated by revolutionary movements, these grow in proportion to the force that resists them.

The hand of Vengeance found the Bed To which the Purple Tyrant fled The iron hand crush'd the tyrant's head And became Tyrant in his stead.