Speech to the National Convention, (5 February 1794), as quoted in The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1923, Vol. 1 (1951) by Edward Hallett Carr, p. 154 <br class="br">Variant translations: <br class="br">The attribute of popular government in a revolution is at one and the same time virtue and terror. Terror without virtue is fatal; virtue without terror is impotent. The terror is nothing but justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is thus an emanation of virtue. <br class="br">As quoted in Red Star Over Southern Africa (1988) by Morgan Norval, p. xvi <br class="br">If the mainspring of popular government in peace time is virtue, its resource during a revolution is at one and the same time virtue and terror; virtue, without which terror is merely terrible; terror, without which virtue is simply powerless. <br class="br">As quoted in Rousseau, Robespierre and English Romanticism (1999) by Gregory Dart <br class="br">Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country's most urgent needs. <br class="br">Original French: La terreur n'est autre chose que la justice prompte, sévère, inflexible; elle est donc une émanation de la vertu ; elle est moins un principe particulier, qu’une conséquence du principe général de la démocratie, appliqué aux plus pressants besoins de la patrie. <br class="br">From Sur les principes de morale politique http://www.royet.org/nea1789-1794/archives/discours/robespierre_principes_morale_politique_05_02_94.htm
Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician
"On the Principles of Political Morality that Should Guide the National Convention in the Domestic Administration of the Republic" (5 February 1784/18 Ploviôse Year 2)
"On the Principles of Political Morality"
“The weapon of the Republic is terror, and virtue is its strength.”
Act I.
Dantons Tod (Danton's Death) (1835)
“I believe that saying a thing is to keep its virtues and take away its terror.”
Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet
Ibid., p. 55
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Creio que dizer uma coisa é conservar-lhe a virtude e tirar-lhe o terror.
“Compassion is not a popular virtue.”
Karen Armstrong (1944) author and comparative religion scholar from Great Britain
NOW interview (2002)
Context: Compassion is not a popular virtue. Very often when I talk to religious people, and mention how important it is that compassion is the key, that it's the sine qua non of religion, people look kind of balked, and stubborn sometimes, as much to say, "what's the point of having religion if you can't disapprove of other people?" And sometimes we use religion just to back up these unworthy hatreds, because we're frightened too.
Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host
Glenn Beck
Television
Fox News
2010-07-20
2010s, 2010
“There is no valid virtue without piety, and there is no authentic piety without virtue.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher
[2013, From the Divine to the Human, World Wisdom, 70, 978-1-936597-32-1]
Spiritual path, Virtue
Witness Lee (1905–1997) Chinese Christian preacher
The Glorious Vision and the Way of the Cross, of Witness Lee - By Living Stream Ministry, ISBN 978-0-87083-479-0
Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher
"Canon Law: Ecclesiastical Ministry" (1771)
Questions sur l'Encyclopédie (1770–1774)
Context: Virtue supposes liberty, as the carrying of a burden supposes active force. Under coercion there is no virtue, and without virtue there is no religion. Make a slave of me, and I shall be no better for it. Even the sovereign has no right to use coercion to lead men to religion, which by its nature supposes choice and liberty. My thought is no more subject to authority than is sickness or health.
