Wendell Phillips Quotes

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.

An oppressed people will always rise.

I was sympathetic to virtually all groups that wanted to get away from the old system.

The great appear great to us only because we are on our knees;, LET US RISE!

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

The great appear great because we are on our knees: Let us rise.

Rise like Lions after slumber In unvanquishable number — Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you — Ye are many — they are few.

No dictator, no invader, can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power, governments and tyrants and armies cannot stand…. Though it take a thousand years, we will be free.

When in the course of human development, existing institutions prove inadequate to the needs of man, when they serve merely to enslave, rob and oppress mankind, the people have the eternal right to rebel against, and overthrow, these institutions.

When we have but the will to do it, that very moment will Justice be done: that very instant the tyrants of the Earth shall bite the dust.

I have struggled against tyranny. I didn't do that in order to substitute another.

If you are not their slaves, you are rebels.

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

Everywhere that freedom stirs, let tyrants fear.

Despair and frustration will not shake our belief that the resistance is the only way of liberation.

The walls, the bars, the guns and the guards can never encircle or hold down the idea of the people.

My sole ambition is to rid Mexico of the class that has oppressed her and given the people a chance to know what real liberty means. And if I could bring that about today by giving up my life, I would do it gladly.

An oppressed people are authorized whenever they can to rise and break their fetters.

I think there is an instinct out there to rid us of our masters.

Every successful revolution puts on in time the robes of the tyrant it has deposed.

Revolution is the festival of the oppressed.

Fight the power that be. Fight the power.

They have learned that resistance is actually possible. The holds are beginning to slip away.

Human beings want to be free and however long they may agree to stay locked up, to stay oppressed, there will come a time when they say 'That's it.' Suddenly they find themselves doing something that they never would have thought they would be doing, simply because of the human instinct that makes them turn their face towards freedom.

Once people sense their own power, no authoritarian government can stand against the people who are determined to be free.