Benjamin Rush Quotes

The United States was born in revolution and nurtured by struggle. Throughout our history, the American people have befriended and supported all those who seek independence and a better way of life.

But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations ... This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution.

Revolutions are the locomotives of history.

For me, 'revolution' simply means radical change.

During my last voyage to America, I enjoyed the happiness of seeing that revolution completed, and, thinking of the one that would probably occur in France, I said in a speech to Congress, published everywhere except in the 'French Gazette,' 'May this revolution serve as a lesson to oppressors and as an example to the oppressed!'

The nation was awakened by that deafening shot.

The glorious spectacle of eighteen millions of people, struggling to burst their chains and be free.

Revolution is but thought carried into action.

The Americans have escaped from England.

The Revolution in America signaled the beginning of a new political era, that this revolution would necessarily determine an important progress in world civilization and that before long, it would cause great changes in the social order which then existed in Europe.

Havana.- If 1959 was the Year of Liberation, 1960 was the Year of the Agrarian Reform. The nation lived days of intense transformations, not only political but, also, in every aspect of social and individual activity of its citizens.

The American war is over; but this far from being the case with the American revolution. On the contrary, nothing but the first act of the drama is closed. It remains yet to establish and perfect our new forms of government, and to prepare the principles, morals, and manners of our citizens for these forms of government after they are established and brought to perfection.

Heroism means going out of bounds. In this world things must go out of bounds from time to time... No one can desire that the world continue to muddle along in every respect in the groove into which imperfect laws and even more imperfect behavior have pushed it. Without heroic intervention no Council of Nicaea, no dethronement of the Merovingians, no conquest of England, no Reformation, no revolt of the Netherlands, no free America. The thing that counts is who intervenes, how and in the name of what.

… the process of social change was not merely a matter of new inventions pressing on old institutions: it was a matter of new classes displacing old.

In no obvious sense was the American Revolution undertaken as a social revolution.

To dare: that is the whole secret of revolutions.

America was not built by conformists, but by mutineers.

Change has no constituency and a perceived revolution has even less.

The beginning of a revolution is in reality the end of a belief.

War will bring the revolution; revolution will stop the war.

Wherever a man comes, there comes revolution. The old is for slaves.

We have the right of revolution. Revolution does not always have to be weapons and warfare; it's also about revolutionary ideas.

If we are now to pay these debts to the English, for what were we fighting?

I tell you that the new age has dawned, the age of holy anarchy.

Nations are liable to various revolutions in the state of their minds, and extent of their knowledge, as well as in their power and wealth ….