Maximilien Robespierre Quotes
Lead the people by reason and the people's enemies by terror.
The terror to which he referred was to the French Revolution’s executing former aristocrats and then including anyone suspected of monarchist sympathies.
Maximilien Robespierre, 1758-1794, French Jabcobin Revolutionist, Member, National Assembly & Committee of Public Safety, Speech to the National Convention, February 5, 1794
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Robespierre was the driving force behind the Reign of Terror where hundreds of thousands of French citizens were beheaded because they were accused of not being loyal enough to the regime.
The terror to which he referred was to the French Revolution’s executing former aristocrats and then including anyone suspected of monarchist sympathies. This quotation shows how fanatics can rationalize evil as justice.
The revolution turned on many of its initiators including Vergniaud. He was guillotined along with other Girondists.
Terror conceptually in France and some other countries was the tool the government used to inhibit criminals.
Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre was a French lawyer and statesman who was one of the best-known and most influential figures of the French Revolution. As a member of the Constituent Assembly and the Jacobin Club, he campaigned for universal manhood suffrage and the abolition both of celibacy for the clergy, and slavery. In 1791, Robespierre became an outspoken advocate for the citizens without a political voice, for their unrestricted admission to the National Guard, to public offices, and for the right to carry arms in self-defence. Robespierre played an important part in the agitation which brought about the fall of the French monarchy on 10 August 1792 and the summoning of a National Convention. His goal was to create a one and indivisible France, equality before the law, to abolish prerogatives and to defend the principles of direct democracy.
