Marquis de Condorcet Quotes

I see them as messianic advocates of American power from one end of the globe, much as the Jacobins in France were messianic advocates of the French Revolution. I don't care whether utopians are Vladimir Lenin on a sealed train to Moscow or Paul Wolfowitz. You're never going to bring utopia, and you're going to hurt a lot of people in the process.

Robespierre, crippled and blind, has yet to be healed to the knowledge that service - his desire - is a deed of savage-speaking gentleness, not soft-spoken savagery.

Robespierre, however, was not the type of leader finally destined to emerge from the Revolution.

Revolutions are the produce of passion, not of sober and tranquil reason.

The French revolution was… to terminate the strife of kings among themselves, and to commence that between kings and people…. The princes of Europe, who had hitherto had no enemies but themselves, viewed it in the light of a common foe.

The “terror” of the French Revolution lasted for ten years. The terror that preceded and led to it lasted for a thousand years.

The Bible would be cast into a bonfire, our holy worship changed into a dance of [French] Jacobin phrensy, our wives and daughters dishonored, and our sons converted into the disciples of Voltaire and the dragoons of Marat.

Revolutions breeds its own excesses.

The revolution can only defend itself by attacking.

Citizens, did you want a revolution without revolution?

There are no fortresses that Bolsheviks cannot storm.

The vessel of Revolution can arrive at port only on a sea reddened by torrents of blood.

One does not make revolutions by halves

The student of French history will recall three systems which have tried to deal with this admitted passion of the French people. The Bourbons crushed it; the Orleanists snubbed it; the Bonapartes deceived it.

The ship of the revolution can only arrive in port on water red with blood.

Religious doctrine and rhetoric … contributed in a fundamental way to the coming of the American Revolution and its final success …. Where political theory advised caution, religious doctrine demanded action. By turning Colonial resistance into a righteous cause, and by carrying the message to all ranks and in all parts of the colonies, ministers did the work of secular radicalism and did it better.

[In the French Revolution] there is much to approve and much to condemn…. An essential change was necessary for the happiness and dignity of a great people, long in a state of degradation.

We regret any country falling off from the cause of withstanding the principles and conduct of those who tyrannize France [the French revolutionists]. The little vigor shown by the Dutch from the beginning of the contest makes their secession of but little real loss.

At first, an awful silence prevailed; at length, some cries of “Vive La République!” [Long Live the Republic] were heard. By degrees the voices multiplied, and in less than ten minutes, this cry, a thousand times repeated, became the universal shout of the multitude and every hat was in the air .... Many in the crowd went to the scaffold, and soaked their handkerchiefs in the Kings blood as a souvenir of the event.

In a few days, I will have them all guillotined in Paris.

France is revolutionary or she is nothing at all. The revolution of1789 is her political religion.

And Robespierre, the Incorruptible, who loved us so much he cut off our heads so we would not be troubled by too many thoughts.

The nation-state became powerful in the wake of the French Revolution, whereas the nation-state has become powerless in light of globalization.

Without enthusiasm, the adventurer could never kindle that fire in his followers which is so necessary to consolidate their mutual interests; for no one can heartily deceive numbers who is not first of all deceived himself.

We must remember, elections are short-term efforts. Revolutions are long-term projects.