Revolution Consequences Quotes

The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.

Revolutions that cannot resist regicide—the French and the Russian come to mind—have a way of ending badly.

All revolutions devour their own children.

Apprehension [about the French Revolution] is, that a majority cannot be induced to adopt the trial by jury; and I consider that as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution....

Revolution is like Saturn, it devours its own children.

The worst of revolutions is a restoration.

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.

There was reason to fear that the Revolution, like Saturn, might devour in turn each one of her children.

Before long, all those bloody butcheries and massacres [violent revolutions] must arouse against them everything that is human in man.

The main effect of a real revolution is perhaps that it sweeps away those who do not know how to wish, and brings to the front men with insatiable appetites for action, power and all that the world has to offer.

The revolution has overthrown the monarchy, true! But perhaps this means that the revolution simply has driven the skin disease inside the organism.

A revolution in itself is not a blessing. The revolution accomplished by the French people is, indeed, a wonderful event - the most striking, in my opinion, in history; but it may lead to events which will make it a mighty evil.

All revolutions invariably encourage bad characters and potential criminals.

Those who give the first shock to a state are the first overwhelmed in its ruin; the fruits of public commotion are seldom enjoyed by him who was the first mover; he only beats the water for another's net.

A successful bloody revolution can only mean further misery for the masses.

Revolutions in Russia are even worse than bad czars.

Didn't people consider what could happen if armies of farm animals united in revolt?

It is possible to think that the Internet will be a net positive for society while admitting that there are significant downsides - after all, it's not a revolution if nobody loses.

Citizens, we have reason to fear that the Revolution, like Saturn, will successively devour all its children, and only produce despotism and the calamities which accompany it.

Long accustomed to the use of European manufactures, [the Cherokee Indians] are as incapable of returning to their habits of skinsand furs as we are, and find their wants the less tolerable as they are occasioned by a war [the American Revolution] the event of which is scarcely interesting to them.

The scrupulous and the just, the noble, humane, and devoted natures; the unselfish and the intelligent may begin a movement--but it passes away from them. They are not the leaders of a revolution. They are its victims

A revolution resembles the death of a fading star, an exhilarating Technicolor explosion that gives way not to an ordered new galaxy but to a nebula, a formless cloud of shifting energy.

One of the consequences of the Iranian revolution has been an explosion of history. A country once known only from British consular reports and intrepid travelogues is now awash with historical documents, letters, diaries, grainy video, weblogs and secret police files of questionable authenticity.

...the worst horror of the Russian Revolution was the letting loose of one hundred million orators, for their passion for talk was immediately responsible for all the other horrors ...Oratory prevented Russia from becoming a constitutional country

One of the things we know now that we didn't know then, is that revolutions are very painful to a lot of people. And that at the stage that we have evolved to now, a revolution would be extremely painful.