Emmeline Pankhurst Quotes

There is something that Governments care for far more than human life, and that is the security of property, and so it is through property that we shall strike the enemy. Be militant each in your own way. I incite this meeting to rebellion.

When the thing is finally sparked, the white man is not there - he's gone. The merchant is not there, the landlord is not there, the one they consider to be the enemy isn't there. So, they knock at his property. This is what makes them knock down the store windows and set fire to things, and things of that sort.

The problem with leaderless uprisings taking over is that you don't always know what you get at the other end. If you are not careful you could replace a bad government with one much worse!

In the relations of a weak Government and a rebellious people there comes a time when every act of the authorities exasperates the masses, and every refusal to act excites their contempt.

Revolution is like Saturn, it devours its own children.

There is no rule without revolts and conspiracies, even as there is no property without work and worry.

I have never advised the destruction of life, but of property, yes.

I want to kill the president because I no like the capitalists. I have the gun in my hand, I kill kings and presidents first and next all capitalists.

The real breeders of discontent and alien doctrines of government and philosophies subversive of good citizenship are such as these who take the law into their own hands.

Having proceeded to this length, for which they are now ripe, we shall have a formidable rebellion against reason, the principle of all government, and against the very name of liberty.

When the government violates the people's rights, insurrection is, for the people and for each portion of the people, the most sacred of the rights and the most indispensible of duties.

a government which goes counter to the will of the nation must be overthrown at once... It is dangerous to drive the people to despair and force them to demand by violence that which they as yet seek only by constitutional means.

Experience shows that the most dangerous moment for a bad government is usually just as its starting on reform.

We must continually stimulate the living politics of the street...it will be our task to try and break it (elections for the National Assembly) up by force.

The revolution is on the verge of winning. We cannot crush it but perhaps we can strangle it …. Perhaps it will be possible to divert the revolutionary energies into the legal channels of an election campaign.

Civil war was taught them [Americans] that "the sacred right of insurrection" is as much out of place in a democratic state as in an aristocratic or a monarchical state; and that the government should always be clothed with ample authority to arrest and punish whoever plots its destruction.

There is no American right to loot stores, or to burn buildings, or to fire rifles from the rooftops. That is crime—and crime must be dealt with forcefully and swiftly, and certainly—under law.

… that the authority of the Government of the United States may be restored, and that peace, order and freedom may be established, I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, do proclaim and declare, that I hereby grant to all persons who have directly or indirectly participated in the existing rebellion, except as hereinafter excepted, amnesty and pardon, with restoration of all rights of property, except as to slaves, … but on the condition, nevertheless, that every such person shall take and subscribe to the following oath or affirmation, and thenceforward keep and maintain said oath inviolate:

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

An armed uprising is inevitable and the time for it fully ripe.

We cannot prevent rebels from entering cities and burning property..

The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself... Almost inevitably, he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable.

Large crowds have gathered in the streets. The pervading spirit among the masses is resistance to Lincoln’s administration, and everywhere that determination is manifest.

The sudden collapse of the monarchy that had ruled Russia for three hundred years led to chaos. Russia immediately became, as one participant put it, 'the freest country in the world.'

For the bourgeoisie, the main danger against which it had to be protected, that which had to be avoided at all costs, was armed uprising, was the armed people, was the workers taking to the streets in an assault against the government.