Citoyens, il est à craindre que la révolution, comme Saturne, ne dévore successivement tous ses enfants et n’engendre enfin le despotisme avec les calamités qui l’accompagnent.
Quoted by F.A.M. Mignet, Histoire de la révolution française (1824), ch. 7 http://perso.orange.fr/fdomi.fournier/H%20moderne/Mignet/P_04.htm original French] and [http://www.fullbooks.com/History-of-the-French-Revolution-from-17894.html English translation
“Revolution is like Saturn, it devours its own children.”
Act I.
Dantons Tod (Danton's Death) (1835)
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Georg Büchner 43
German dramatist and writer of poetry and prose 1813–1837Related quotes
“All revolutions devour their own children.”
Remark in prison to Hans Frank (30 June 1934) paraphrasing Pierre Vergniaud; quoted in The Face of the Third Reich: Portraits of the Nazi Leadership (1999) by Joachim C. Fest
Source: Aesthetics and Politics
Voters' strike
“The greatest threat of the Cuban revolution is its own example, its revolutionary ideas”
Tactics and Strategy of the Latin American Revolution (1962)
Context: The most submissive countries and consequently, the most cynical, talk about the threat of Cuban subversion, and they are right. The greatest threat of the Cuban revolution is its own example, its revolutionary ideas, the fact that the government has been able to increase the combativity of the people, led by a leader of world stature, to heights seldom equaled in history. Here is the electrifying example of a people prepared to suffer nuclear immolation so that its ashes may serve as a foundation for new societies. When an agreement was reached by which the atomic missiles were removed, without asking our people, we were not relieved or thankful for the truce; instead we denounced the move with our own voice. We have demonstrated our firm stand, our own position, our decision to fight, even if alone, against all dangers and against the atomic menace of Yankee imperialism.
“A government creates its own revolution. There can be no revolt without it.”
Source: The Anarchist Cookbook (1971), Chapter Two: "Electronics, Sabotage, and Surveillance".
As quoted in Treasury of Thought : Forming an encyclopædia of quotation from ancient and modern authors (1894) edited by Maturin Murray Ballou, p. 123
Source: Red Horizons: Chronicles of a Communist Spy Chief, p. 47
Source: Becoming Hitler: The Making of a Nazi (2017), pp. 46-47