Lapham’s Quarterly

Governments are not overthrown by the poor, who have no power, but by the rich—when they are insulted by their inferiors and cannot obtain justice.

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.

The peasants alone are revolutionary, for they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The starving peasant, outside the class system, is the first among the exploited to discover that only violence pays. For him there is no compromise, no possible coming to terms. 

Revolutionaries are greater sticklers for formality than conservatives.

If there was ever a just war since the world began, it is this in which America is now engaged.

An oppressed people are authorized, whenever they can, to rise and break their fetters.

Insurrection of thought always precedes insurrection of arms.

Revolutions have never lightened the burden of tyranny, they have only shifted it to another shoulder.