Maximilien Quotes & Sayings

Maximilien R. Peters! Incorruptible, ineluctable, and indestructable! It's time to start a revolution, baby — Jennifer Donnelly

Any law which violates the inalienable rights of man is essentially unjust and tyrannical; it is not a law at all. — Maximilien Robespierre

A true revolutionary should be ready to perish in the process — Maximilien Robespierre

To punish the oppressors of humanity is clemency; to forgive them is cruelty. — Maximilien De Robespierre

Death is the beginning of Immortality. - MAXIMILIEN ROBESPIERRE — Kami Garcia

Any institution which does not suppose the people good, and the magistrate corruptible, is evil. — Maximilien Robespierre

By sealing our work with our blood, we may see at least the bright dawn of universal happiness. — Maximilien Robespierre

Our revolution has made me feel the full force of the axiom that history is fiction and I am convinced that chance and intrigue have produced more heroes than genius and virtue. — Maximilien De Robespierre

Peoples do not judge in the same way as courts of law; they do not hand down sentences, they throw thunderbolts; they do not condemn kings, they drop them back into the void; and this justice is worth just as much as that of the courts. — Maximilien De Robespierre

If the spring of popular government in time of peace is virtue, the springs of popular government in revolution are at once virtue and terror. Virtue, without which terror is fatal; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing other than justice, prompts, severe, inflexible. It is there 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 ... is force made only to protect crime? And is the thunderbolt not destined to strike the heads of the proud? ... Are the enemies within not the allies of the enemies without? ... — Maximilien De Robespierre

Lf the attribute of popular government in peace is virtue, the attribute of popular government in revolution is at one and the same time virtue and terror, virtue without which terror is fatal, terror without which virtue is impotent. The terror is nothing but justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is thus an emanation of virtue. — Maximilien Robespierre

This is Maximilien de Robespierre, barrister-at-law: unmarried, personable, a young man with all his life before him. Today against his most deeply held convictions he has followed the course of the law and sentenced a criminal to death. And now he is going to pay for it. — Hilary Mantel

It is with regret that I pronounce the fatal truth: Louis ought to perish rather than a hundred thousand virtuous citizens; Louis must die that the country may live — Maximilien Robespierre

The revolution is the war of liberty against its enemies. The constitution is the rule of liberty against its enemies. The constitution is the rule of liberty when victorious and peaceable. — Maximilien Robespierre

[redacted: no source given]. — Maximilien De Robespierre

A nation is truly corrupted when having ... lost its character and it's liberty, it passes from democracy to aristocracy or to monarchy. That is the decrepitude and death of the body politic ... — Maximilien De Robespierre

Crime butchers innocence to secure a throne, and innocence struggles with all its might against the attempts of crime. — Maximilien Robespierre

Smuggle out the truth, pass it through all the obstacles that its enemies fabricate; multiply, spread by all means possible her message so that she may triumph; through zeal and civic action counterbalance the influence of money and the machinations lavished on the propagation of deception. That, in my opinion, is the most useful activity and the most sacred duty of pure patriotism. — Maximilien Robespierre

Death is not "an eternal sleep!" Citizens! efface from the tomb that motto, graven by sacrilegious hands, which spreads over all nature a funereal crape, takes from oppressed innocence its support, and affronts the beneficent dispensation of death! Inscribe rather thereon these words: "Death is the commencement of immortality! — Maximilien Robespierre

Food that is necessary for man's existence is as sacred as life itself. Everything that is indispensable for its preservation is the common property of society as a whole. It is only the surplus that is private property and can be safely left to individual commercial enterprise. — Maximilien Robespierre

Citizens, did you want a revolution without revolution? — Maximilien Robespierre

The aim of constitutional government is to preserve the Republic; that of revolutionary government is to lay its foundation. — Maximilien Robespierre

Terror is nothing else than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible. — Maximilien De Robespierre

The most extravagant idea that can be born in the head of a political thinker is to believe that it suffices for people to enter, weapons in hand, among a foreign people and expect to have its laws and constitution embraced. No one loves armed missionaries; the first lesson of nature and prudence is to repulse them as enemies. — Maximilien De Robespierre

The English take their pleasures sadly, after the fashion of their country. — Maximilien De Bethune, Duke Of Sully

Virtue, without which terror is destructive; terror, without which virtue is impotent. Terror is only justice prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue. — Maximilien De Robespierre

A sensibility that wails almost exclusively over the enemies of liberty seems suspect to me. Stop shaking the tyrant's bloody robe in my face, or I will believe that you wish to put Rome in chains. — Maximilien De Robespierre

Terror is nothing more than justice, prompt, secure and inflexible. — Maximilien Robespierre

When a Banker jumps out of a window, jump after him - that's where the money is. — Maximilien Robespierre

The king must die so that the country can live. — Maximilien De Robespierre

Is it to be thought unreasonable that the people, in atonement for wrongs of a century, demand the vengeance of a single day? — Maximilien Robespierre

It has been said that terror is the principle of despotic government. Does your government therefore resemble despotism? Yes, as the sword that gleams in the hands of the heroes of liberty resembles that with which the henchmen of tyranny are armed ... The government of the revolution is liberty's despotism against tyranny. Is force made only to protect crime — Maximilien De Robespierre

Terror is only justice: prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country. — Maximilien Robespierre

No one loves armed missionaries. — Maximilien Robespierre

Formerly, when a king died at Versailles the reign of his successor was immediately announced by the cry: "The king is dead, long live the king", in order to make it understood that despotism is immortal! Now an entire people, moved by a sublime instinct, cried: Long live the Republic! to teach the universe that tyranny died with the tyrant. — Maximilien Robespierre

Atheism is aristocratic; the idea of a great Being that watches over oppressed innocence and punishes triumphant crime is altogether popular. — Maximilien Robespierre

Is it not He whose immortal hand ... has written there the death sentence of tyrants? He did not create kings to devour the human race. He did not create priests to harness us, like vile animals, to the chariots of kings and to give to the world examples of baseness, pride, perfidy, avarice, debauchery and falsehood. He created the universe to proclaim His power.
[The Cult of the Supreme Being] — Maximilien De Robespierre

Establish liberty on a rock of brass. — Maximilien Robespierre

But Valentine, why despair, why always paint the future in such sombre hues?" Maximilien asked.
"Because, my friend, I judge it by the past. — Alexandre Dumas

The English have a heavy hearted way of amusing themselves. — Maximilien De Bethune, Duke Of Sully

This was an idea peculiar to Camille, Maximilien thought, that the worse things get, the better they get. No one else seems to think this way. — Hilary Mantel

There are only two parties in France: the people and its enemies. We must exterminate those miserable villains who are eternally conspiring against the rights of man ... We must exterminate all our enemies. — Maximilien De Robespierre

I never play, because I am not rich enough to afford to lose or poor enough to want to win.
Maximilien Morrel, The Count of Monte Cristo — Alexandre Dumas

The general will rules in society as the private will governs each separate individual. — Maximilien De Robespierre

There are people who are willing to suffer and swallow their tears at leisure, and God will not doubt reward them in heaven for their resignation; but those who have the will to struggle strike back at fate in retaliation for the blows they receive. Do you intend to fight back at fate, Valentine? That's what I came here to ask you.
-Maximilien Morrel — Alexandre Dumas

Again, it may be said, that to love justice and equality the people need no great effort of virtue; it is sufficient that they love themselves. — Maximilien Robespierre

Softness to traitors will destroy us all. — Maximilien Robespierre

Pity is treason. — Maximilien Robespierre

The year is now 1774. Poseurs or not, it is time to grow up. It is time to enter the public realm, the world of public acts and public attitudes. Everything that happens now will happen in the light of history. It is not a midday luminary, but a corpse-candle to the intellect; at best, it is a secondhand lunar light, error-breeding, sand-blind and parched.

Camille Desmoulins, 1793: "They think that gaining freedom is like growing up: you have to suffer."

Maximilien Robespierre, 1793: "History is fiction. — Hilary Mantel

The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant. — Maximilien De Robespierre

One can ... never create [freedom] by an invading force. — Maximilien Robespierre

Omelets are not made without breaking eggs. — Maximilien Robespierre

Maximilien,' the count said, 'the friends whom we have lost do not rest in the earth, they are buried in our hearts, and that is how God wanted it, so that we should always be in their company. I have two friends who are always with me, in that way: one is the man who gave me life, the other is the one who gave me understanding. The spirit of both lives in me. I consult them when I am in doubt and, if I have done any good, I owe it to their advice. Look into your heart, Morrel, and ask it if you should continue to show me that sorry face. — Alexandre Dumas

To defend the oppressed against their oppressors, to plead the cause of the weak against the strong who exploit and crush them, this is the duty of all hearts that have not been spoiled by egoism and corruption ... It is so sweet to devote oneself to one's fellows that I do not know how there can be so many unfortunates still without support or defenders. As for me, my life's task will be to help those who suffer and to pursue through my avenging speech those who take pleasure in the pain of others. How happy I will be if my feeble efforts are crowned with success and if, at the price of my devotion and sacrifices, my reputation is not tarnished by the crimes of the oppressors I will fight. — Maximilien De Robespierre

The revolutionary government owes to the good citizen all the protection of the nation; it owes nothing to the Enemies of the People but death. — Maximilien De Robespierre

We must smother the internal and external enemies of the Republic or perish with it; now in this situation, the first maxim of your policy ought to be to lead the people by reason and the people's enemies by terror. — Maximilien Robespierre