9 Quotes by Maximilien de Robespierre

Z pozornie nowych pomysłów wyłaniała się stara, gorzka prawda: szczęście ludzkości znajduje się na końcu ponurej, pełnej krzywd drogi. Kto wie, czy to nie ta świadomość wyzwoliła w Robespierze silne emocje religijne? Kto wie czy to nie ta myśl sprawiła, że w późniejszych dziesięcioleciach pewien nastrój religijny bywał mimo wszystko, choć dziwacznie, mocno zakorzeniony w ideologiach lewicowych?

Périssent les colonies si elles nous en coûtent l'honneur, la liberté.(Perish the colonies if they cost us Honor, Liberty.)

. . . Kings, aristocrats, tyrants, whoever they be, are slaves rebelling against the sovereign of the earth, which is the human race, and against the legislator of the universe, which is nature.[trans. G. Rudé; A Proposed Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen].

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]

They call me a tyrant . . . One arrives at a tyrant's throne by the help of scoundrels . . . What faction do I belong to? You yourselves. What is that faction which, since the Revolution began, has crushed the factions and swept away hireling traitors? It is you, it is the people, it is the principles of the Revolution. . . . [trans. G. Rudé, ellipses sic; Last Speech to the Convention (July 26, 1794)].

To punish the oppressors of humanity is clemency; to forgive them is cruelty.

War is always the first object of a powerful government which wishes to increase its power. I shall not speak to you of the opportunity that a war affords for a government to exhaust the people and to dissipate its treasure and to cover with an impenetrable veil its depredations and its errors . . . It is in time of war that the executive power displays the most redoubtable energy and that it wields a sort of dictatorship most ominous to a nascent liberty . . . [trans. G. Rudé; pg. 33].

. . . Equality of rights is established by nature; society, far from impairing it, guarantees it against the abuse of power which renders it illusory.[trans. G. Rudé; A Proposed Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen].

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.