Douglas MacArthur Quotes

Sirens wailed; the revolution had come to Harrisonville. Blood was flowing on Pearl Street.

With society and its public, there is no longer any other language than that of bombs, barricades, and all that follows.

I fear we may live to see another revolution.

If we don't make earnest moves toward real solutions, then each day we move one day closer to revolution and anarchy in this country. This is the sad, and yet potentially joyous, state of America.

I could see flames from the windows of my chambers. For the next three or four days we had major rioting here in Washington and I stayed at the court day and night.

We should get inside, beat up the police and bust up the whole building. Where are your guns and bombs?

Miserable news from Paris. Another Revolution, barricades, the troops of the line fraternizing with the insurgent National Guards, two Generals shot, to more in the hands and tender mercies of the beastly cowardly Paris mob. Those Parisians are the scum of the earth, and Paris is the crater of the volcano, France, and a bottomless pit of revolution and anarchy.

When hopes and dreams are loose in the streets, it is well for the timid to lock doors, shutter windows and lie low until the wrath has passed. For there is often a monstrous incongruity between the hopes, however noble and tender, and the action which follows them. It is as if ivied maidens and garlanded youths were to herald the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Mass action culminates in armed insurrection and civil war.

All revolutions invariably encourage bad characters and potential criminals.

Something is stirring in the hearts and minds of the people.

My poor friends, you know as much about starting a riot as the Italians know about writing a symphony.

Revolutions begin with enthusiasm but often end in tears.

Revolutions rarely end up as positively as they begin.

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

I am against revolutions. We have had negative experience with coups and rallies in the past. We remember the shooting at the White House in Moscow The new Russian protest is the most beautiful, most peaceful, most intelligent protest in the world—not a single broken window, not a single burned care or victim.

The masses are principally to be feared because they fly out ever and anon into violence; and from plundering they proceed to the flat levelling of estates.

The spirit of the kingdom undermines its defenses. People will rise against the king. A new peace is made; holy laws deteriorate. Paris has never before found herself in such dire straits.

The capacity to produce social chaos is the last resort of desperate people.

Revolt and revolution both wind up at the same crossroads: the police, or folly.

The scum that rises upmost, when the nation boils.

Riot – A popular entertainment given to the military by innocent bystanders.

I am interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos, especially activity that seems to have no meaning.

Insurrection, never so necessary, is a most sad necessity; and governors who wait for that to instruct them are surely getting into the fatalest course.

I think that rebellions arise out of anger, and they're very short-lived.