Olympe de Gouges Quotes

Historically, if you look at great civilizations, why do they crumble? Is it because of what's outside or because of something internal? It's always internal. It is.

It is when empires begin to fall, that they tend to cause the most mayhem.

The ferment here [Holland] has made terrifying progress and if it is not stopped, it is to be feared that it may cause an explosion which will have incalculable consequences…. The patriots themselves … have judged that it is possible to destroy the Anglo-Stadholderian government only by mobilizing the bourgeois. They in their turn are led on by the impetus since they hear only of tyranny on the one hand and liberty on the other.

The system of Terror now proscribed throughout the French Republic cannot for one moment be tolerated in our little country without destroying it forever. Our system of government, our domestic circumstances and our dealings in commerce are all too sensitive to survive a repetition of these scenes of violence.

America is on her deathbed.

We are at the edge of an abyss and we're close to being irrevocably lost.

I think daily that the country's future is being thrown to the wind.

I'm not really a political animal but I am rather fascinated by the meltdown of England and America. In the end, it seems as if America might come out of it, but I'm not sure if England is ever going to recover.

Men like me, who merely wish to establish political freedom, will in such circumstances lose all their influence, and others will get influence who may become dangerous to all established interests whatsoever.

Albania is at risk and we are living in difficult times.

Venezuela has changed forever.

Something is wanting, and something must be done, or we shall be involved in all the horror of failure, and civil war without a prospect of its termination.

But it is possible that, in the days ahead, these years we have lived through may eventually be thought of simply as a period of disturbance and regression.

It is the end. But of what? The end of France? No. The end of kings? Yes.

Whenever the government of the United States shall break up, it will probably be in consequence of a false direction having been given to public opinion.

If the French delirium is not properly repressed, it may be more or less fatal to the heart of Europe for the pestilential air must inevitably ravage and destroy everything it approaches.

As soon as control eases, there is chaos. [Yi fang, jiu luan.]

Let us look the danger fairly in the face. Secession is neither more nor less than revolution.

When authority itself is in question, the middle gives way.

Debt and revolution are inseparable as cause and effect.

Citizens, we have reason to fear that the Revolution, like Saturn, will successively devour all its children, and only produce despotism and the calamities which accompany it.

The Revolution has grown cold; all its principles are weakened; there remains only red caps worn by intriguers. The exercise of terror has made crime blasé, as strong liquors made the palace blasé.

I have arrived at only a few sure conclusions: 1. For us, (South) America is ungovernable. 2. He who serves a revolution ploughs the sea. 3. The only thing we can do in (South) America is emigrate. 4. This country will eventually fall into the hands of the unbridled mob, and will proceed to almost imperceptible petty tyrannies of all complexions and races. 5. Devoured as we are by every kind of crime and annhilated by ferocity Europeans will not go to the trouble of conquering us. 6. If it were possible for any part of the world to revert to primordial chaos, that would be (South) America’s final state.

A few [South American territories] will constitute themselves as conventional federal republics; almost inevitably the larger territories will establish monarchies, some so wretched that they will devour their natural and human resources in present and future revolutions.

Netherlands, Netherlands, you stand on the brink of your own destruction. Your ruin is inevitable unless reforms which must be as swift as they are necessary can avert the fatal blow.