The 75 best phrases of Maximilien Robespierre
Maximilien Robespierre was a celebrated French politician, speaker and writer born in the city of Arras during the year 1758.
Robespierre's ideas were the ones that inspired the society that was born after the French Revolution and, to a large extent part, these ideas are the same that have inspired the constitutions of a large number of western countries current.
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Phrases and reflections of Maximilien Robespierre, French politician and revolutionary
Robespierre is one of the writers and politicians who have had the greatest impact on our society and possibly that is why at some point in your life you have heard someone speak about it.
But... What do you really know about that historical figure? Below you will find a selection with the best phrases of Maximilien Robespierre, some quotes with which you can discover what his ideals and ways of understanding reality were.
1. Free countries are those in which the rights of man are respected and where the laws, therefore, are just.
It is true that without individual freedom and without basic rights, no country can consider itself a truly free country.
2. When work is a pleasure, life is a joy! When work is a duty, life is slavery.
A phrase that undoubtedly still retains a great truth today. We should all dedicate ourselves to what we are really passionate about.
3. Punishing the oppressors of humanity is mercy, forgiving them is barbarism.
When a person does evil, it is inevitable that sooner or later that evil ends up coming back to him.
4. The centuries and the earth are the spoils of crime and tyranny; freedom and virtue have scarcely settled for a moment on some points of the globe. However, I do not believe that virtue is a ghost, nor do I believe that humanity should despair, or doubt for a single moment the success of your great undertaking. The world has changed, and it has yet to change.
The French Revolution, which Robespierre inspired, was a very important first step which ended up drifting into the modern society that we all know today.
5. The secret of freedom lies in educating people, while the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.
Without education a person will never be totally free, because without it it is impossible for said person to end up creating that life they dream of for themselves.
6. A happy and triumphant homeland can be abandoned. But threatened, shattered, and oppressed, she is never left; you save it or die for it.
As we can see in this quote, Robespierre was undoubtedly a patriot, but unfortunately for the elites of In those times he was a patriot who did not fight to safeguard the interests of the monarchs of the time.
7. He who asks shyly is exposed to being denied what he asks without conviction.
When we want something fervently, we must demand it with force, because otherwise our requests will seldom be heard by those who have the power to make them reality.
8. Those who deny the immortality of the soul do themselves justice.
Although in those years religion was a very important factor in French society, it was because of the philosophers of those days. times when many people began little by little to become disenchanted with those religious ideas that until that moment many had possessed.
9. The government of the revolution is the despotism of freedom against tyranny.
The revolution was undoubtedly a very painful step and one that would also cost a great deal of casualties but Robespierre was fully convinced, that it was a totally fundamental step in order to achieve the glorious future that his nation really deserved.
10. There are some useful men, but none are essential. Only the people are immortal.
As isolated individuals we are all weak and that is something that Robespierre undoubtedly always had very much in mind.
11. The sole foundation of civil society is morality.
As a society it is essential that we all respect each other, because we should all know that without morals, without respect and without principles a society can never reach its zenith.
12. If virtue is perfect, perhaps man is imperfect.
As human beings we are all imperfect, we should all be very clear that there is not a single person in the world who does not have a defect of which he is very likely to be ashamed.
13. Because I feel compassion for the oppressed, I cannot feel it for the oppressors.
If the oppressor is not punished the oppressed can never be duly rewarded, he who does evil should always know that sooner or later it will most likely end up paying for its acts.
14. I was born to fight crime, not to rule it.
During the French revolution many acts were carried out that certainly should not have happened but something that Robespierre knew very well, is that a revolution can never be controlled by one person or by a specific group of people. individuals.
15. Nothing is fair more than honesty; nothing is useful more than fair.
Justice should be the same for all French and thanks to that revolution, that is a right that still lasts to this day.
16. How long will the fury of the despots be called justice and the justice of the people, barbarism or rebellion?
The French people made the firm decision to say enough and the oppressors were witnesses, to what extent had reached the exhaustion of those who until that moment assumed their lackeys.
17. Souls of mud, who do not appreciate more than gold, I do not want to touch your treasures, no matter how impure their origin.
Fundamental rights are more important than any material wealth that we can possess because without them, no person can be truly free and master of himself.
18. I am honored to know that many are remembering me by the people of all the institutes, that is, that they are telling me the actions that I do, it is to be proud. not?
Robespierre was only a simple ideologue, although his words caused a radical change in the population, which would end up being fatal for the monarchs and also landowners of that time.
19. Pity is treason.
He who up to that moment had done evil towards others should not be forgiven, because otherwise form French society could never make a good head start towards the future that it truly deserved.
20. A great revolution is nothing more than a thunderous crime that destroys another crime.
A people always oppressed with the passage of time will end up being revealed because the patience of a people although it is numerous, sooner or later always ends up being exhausted.
21. If the spring of popular government in peacetime is virtue, the spring of government during the revolution are, at the same time, Virtue and Terror; the virtue without which terror is deadly; the terror without which virtue is powerless.
Robespierre knew very well that the revolution happened yes or yes by the use of arms because otherwise, it would never achieve its objective.
22. When the government violates the rights of the people, insurrection is for the people the most sacred and indispensable of duties.
If the state does not respect our rights as citizens we have a duty to try to enforce them, this is a maxim that this great thinker always respected throughout his life.
23. The worst of all despotisms is the military government.
Robespierre knew that if the French Revolution were not completely successful, the government could be left in the hands of the military, an end that was even worse than the present that the French had hitherto vivid.
24. We can't make an omelette without breaking the eggs.
No great achievement can be accomplished without making the necessary concessions. The end of an era thanks to the revolution was a new beginning for millions of French.
25. If they invoke heaven, it is to usurp the earth.
According to Robespierre's ideas, no king was the rightful owner of the land on which he walked, since in a really just society, as is logical, all men are always born with the same rights and obligations.
26. Man was born for happiness and for freedom and everywhere he is slave and unhappy! Society has as its goal the preservation of its rights and the perfection of its being; and everywhere society degrades and oppresses him! The time has come to remind you of your true destinations!
The exhaustion of the French was undoubtedly very important at that time and consequently, society took a truly radical turn as never before.
27. When the tyranny collapses, let us try not to give it time to rise up.
The ideologues of the French Revolution believed that, as is very commonly said, they should not leave a puppet with a head, because otherwise, always there would be a risk that a new monarchy could flourish.
28. It is urgent that each citizen knows, in order to assert and enforce what corresponds to them, the rights that he acquires by birth. Ignorance is the basis of despotism and man is truly free the day he can say to tyrants: Retire, I am old enough to be able to rule myself!
As we can see according to this famous thinker, all human beings are born with the same fundamental rights and we are also possessors of the innate capacity to govern ourselves.
29. Terror is nothing more than swift, severe, inflexible justice.
Although the revolution happened to commit very painful acts, Robespierre knew very well that it was the the only path the French could take if they wanted to reach the future to which they were predestined.
30. A throne can be overthrown by force, but only wisdom can found a republic.
A government will only endure over time if it is fair and egalitarian, otherwise it will once again be burned, just like its predecessor.
31. The king must die so the country can live.
Only with the death of King Louis France could be truly free, this was an act that unfortunately the revolutionaries could not avoid.
32. We must fear the value of our opinions, the flexibility of our duties.
Without an iron determination, Robespierre knew that the revolution would fail because the powers that be of the moment, they were so powerful that a great bloodshed was something that simply could not be avoid.
33. Any law that violates the inalienable rights of man is essentially unjust and tyrannical, it is not a law at all.
This well-known lawyer had the firm conviction that the law should only exist to ensure equality among men and not to further the personal interests of certain monarchs or great landowners.
34. It has been said that Terror was the force of despotic government. Does yours resemble that of despotism? The government of the Revolution is the despotism of freedom against tyranny. Until when will the violence of despots continue to be called justice, until when will the justice of the people be called barbarism or rebellion? How much tenderness towards the oppressors, how inflexibility towards the oppressed! Anyone who does not absolutely abhor crime cannot love virtue: there is nothing more logical than this. Pity for innocence, pity for the weak, pity for the unfortunate, pity for humanity.
Fundamental human rights did not yet exist in French society at the time and unfortunately those poorest were mistreated over and over again during all the days of their lives.
35. In defining freedom, the first of man's goods, the most sacred of the rights that nature grants him, you have said, with all reason, that it was limited by the rights of others, but you have not applied this principle to property, which is an institution Social. Our statement seems made not for men, but for the rich.
There were many in those times who, like this famous thinker, had the opinion that society was totally unfair and it was precisely that thought, which ended up leading to what would later be known as the revolution French.
36. We want to replace in our country selfishness with morality, honor with honesty, customs with principles, decorum with duty, the tyranny of fashion with the rule of reason, contempt of misfortune for the contempt of vice, insolence for pride, vanity for the greatness of soul, the love of money for the love of glory, good society for good people, intrigue for merit, presumption for intelligence, brilliance for truth, the weariness of voluptuousness for the charm of happiness, the meanness of the great for the greatness of man, a kind, frivolous and miserable people for a sublime, powerful and happy people, that is, all the vices and all the ridiculousness of the monarchy for all the virtues of the Republic.
The revolution was a tool which had the purpose of ending all those great injustices that until that moment those richest used to perpetrate and also had to ensure, a just and equal future for all citizens of the state French.
37. It is much more urgent to make poverty honorable than to outlaw opulence: Fabrizio's hut has nothing to envy the palace of Crassus.
The idea that all citizens should be respected regardless of their economic position, is something that today we all owe to the well-known French Revolution.
38. There are two kinds of selfishness. One, vile, cruel, who isolates man from his fellow men, who seeks exclusive well-being at the price of the misery of others. The other, generous, benefactor, who mistakes our happiness for the happiness of all, who associates our glory with that of the country. The first begets oppressors and tyrants; the second, the defenders of humanity.
This phrase shows us once again how Maximilien Robespierre was a dreamer and his greatest dream was that all French people had an equal chance of being happy in the course of their lives.
39. It is intended to govern the revolutions with the tricks of the palace; conspiracies against the Republic follow the same procedures as common processes. Tyranny kills and freedom is forced to sue; and the law by which conspirators are tried is governed by the code that they themselves have made. The slowness of the trials is equivalent to impunity, the fluctuation of the sentence stimulates all the guilty.
In practice no one had real control over what happened during the revolution, those who carried out it were simply men committed to certain ideals that they had in common.
40. Weakness, vices and prejudices are the ways of royalty.
While the population was starving the rich and noble lived their lives in great opulence and It was largely because of this lifestyle that many French decided to act against him.
41. I have sometimes feared the possibility of being stained in the eyes of posterity with neighboring impurities of as many infamous as were inducted into the ranks of the sincere defenders of the humanity. I understand that it is easy for the league of tyrants of the world to sink a single man.
Robespierre knew that over time they could end up telling lies about him, but that was an idea that he was never able to dissuade.
42. In aristocratic states the word homeland only means something to patrician families that have usurped sovereignty. Only under a democratic regime is the State really the homeland of all the individuals that compose it.
Many of the rights that we enjoy today we owe in great measure to those brave men who decided fight against the powerful, with the idea of being able to establish democracy in many countries as we all know it today.
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43. Under the despotic regime, everything is mean, everything is petty, the sphere of vices, like that of virtues, is reduced. The power of slander was limited to dividing brothers, spoiling spouses, building the fortune of a schemer on the ruin of an honest man. He did not unleash revolutions except in the antechambers and in the cabinets of the kings: the noblest of his exploits consisted in changing a minister's post or in banishing a courtier.
The society in which Robespierre lived was so unfair that no one had ever set out to start a revolution because if it failed, those who had started it knew very well that they would undoubtedly die in gallows.
44. Freedom, equality, fraternity.
This is possibly the most famous phrase of this great thinker and today, this quote represents the basic pillars from which French society has been built.
45. When the public force only supports the general will, the State is free and peaceful. When he opposes it, the state is enslaved.
Both the military and the police owe their power to all citizens and that is why they must always ensure the general interest of the population.
46. Citizens, did you want a revolution without a revolution?
At the beginning of the revolution, many doubted it, but this well-known thinker always had the idea very clear, that the revolution was forced to commit certain acts of which no one in the future would be proud.
47. By sealing our work with our blood, we can at least see the bright dawn of universal happiness.
Robespierre knew that casualties on the revolutionary side were inevitable But that was the only path the French could take if they wanted to be able to create a more just society in the future.
48. The most extravagant idea that can be born in the head of a political thinker is to believe that it is enough that people enter, arms in hand, among a foreign people and wait for their laws to be adopted and Constitution.
A war is a very painful situation which must be avoided at all costs and until that moment, the monarchs of the times began warlike confrontations continuously knowing that they would never be the ones who would die in the field of battle.
49. When a nation has been forced to resort to the right of insurrection, it returns to the state of nature in relation to the tyrant. How can the tyrant invoke the state of nature in relation to the tyrant? How can the tyrant invoke the social pact? He has annihilated it. The nation can still preserve it, if it deems it convenient, for everything by preserving relations between citizens; but the effect of tyranny and insurrection is to break it completely as far as the tyrant is concerned; he places them reciprocally in a state of war.
According to this speaker's personal ideas, the idea that France had a king was something simply bizarre and there are many who to this day still fully agree with him on this thought.
50. Luis cannot be judged; either he is already condemned or the Republic is not acquitted. To propose to put Luis on trial, in any way that could be done, would be to retreat towards real and constitutional despotism; it is a counterrevolutionary idea, because it means putting the revolution itself in conflict.
Keeping the king alive was to recognize his superiority and therefore assassinate him, it was the only path that according to Robespierre the revolutionaries at that time could take.
51. It is a serious contradiction to suppose that the constitution can preside over this new order of things; that would be assuming that he himself had survived. What are the laws that supersede it? Those of nature, which is the foundation of society itself: the salvation of peoples. The right to punish the tyrant and the right to dethrone him are the same; they both include the same shapes. The tyrant's judgment is insurrection; the verdict, the collapse of his power; the sentence, whatever the freedom of the people requires.
As we can see according to this ideologue of the French Revolution, King Louis of France should undoubtedly be executed. otherwise, society ran the risk of making the same mistakes it had already made in the past.
52. Death to the villain who dares to abuse the sacred name of freedom or the powerful weapons intended to defend it, to bring mourning or death to the patriotic heart.
From the French Revolution a very patriotic feeling nested in the hearts of most French a feeling, which undoubtedly still lingers today.
53. The heat of the sky is perhaps not the most dangerous rock that we have to avoid; but rather that languor that produces comfort and distrust in our own courage.
Robespierre knew that there was no god who really supported the King Louis power from beyond, French society had to wake up if it wanted to reach its maximum fullness as a people.
54. In the system of the French Revolution, what is immoral is impolite, and what tends to corrupt is counterrevolutionary.
The elites knew that they could buy with material goods the loyalty of many people and it was that great ability to corrupt hearts, which really scared the original ideologues of the revolution.
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55. We wish, in a word, to fulfill the intentions of nature and the destiny of man, fulfill the promises of philosophy, and absolve providence from a long reign of crime and tyranny.
Feudalism was something that had to disappear since certainly, all the men and women who at that time inhabited France were totally deserving of being able to possess the same rights.
56. In our country we want morality to replace selfishness, probity for false honor, principles for customs, duties to good customs, the rule of law. reason to the tyranny of fashion, the contempt of vice for the contempt of misfortune, the pride of insolence, the magnanimity of vanity, the love of glory for the love of money, good people for good company, merit for intrigue, genius for wit, truth for the tinsel show, the attractions of happiness for the boredom of sensuality, the greatness of man for the smallness of the great, a magnanimous, powerful, joyful people, for a kind, frivolous and miserable; in a word, all the virtues and miracles of a Republic instead of all the vices and absurdities of a Monarchy.
It is evident that Maximilien Robespierre was not able to see a single positive aspect in the monarchy as it was evident that in his opinion, this was the main creator of most of the problems that until then suffered the population.
57. Democracy is a state in which the sovereign people, guided by laws that are their own work, do for themselves himself all that he can do correctly and, through the delegates, all that he cannot do on his own same.
Democracy is certainly one of the most equitable systems that exist as long as, yes, political corruption does not reach the highest levels.
58. If the main source of popular government in peacetime is virtue, the main source of popular government in revolution is both virtue and terror.
In reality, the people always have total control of the state, because if it makes the decision to reveal itself, there will be no factual power that is capable of stopping this angry mob.
59. England! Say ah! What good is it to you, England, and her depraved constitution, which may have seemed free to you when you you plunged into the lowest degree of bondage, but that it is time to stop praising out of ignorance or custom!
England was not in those days a very inspiring nation according to Robespierre's ideas, for under his personal opinion the French people were always much more worthy of admiration in all respects (something very logical considering their nationality).
60. But they do exist, I can assure you, souls that are sensitive and pure; there exists, that tender, compelling and irresistible passion, the torment and delight of magnanimous hearts; that deep horror of tyranny, that compassionate zeal for the oppressed, that sacred love for the homeland, that love still most sublime and holy for mankind, without which a great revolution is just a noisy crime that destroys another crime; yes there is, that generous ambition to establish here on earth the world's first Republic.
During those years, society was changing and people were realizing that their situation of servitude could be reversed if they really wanted to.
61. Certainly if all men were just and virtuous; if greed were never tempted to devour the substance of the people; If the rich, receptive to the voices of reason and nature, were to consider themselves the treasurers of society or brothers of the poor, it would not be possible to recognize more law than freedom more unlimited.
Democracy was seen before the revolution as a true utopia, a paradise that, as the French would later discover, also had its own lights and shadows.
62. They have been told things about Jews that are infinitely exaggerated and often contrary to history.
This famous writer was totally against the anti-Semitic ideas that in those years were already beginning to proliferate among the people, ideas that as we all know over the years would end up causing the death of thousands of people on the continent European.
63. How could social interest be based on the violation of the eternal principles of justice and reason that are the foundations of all human society?
The monarchy relied on the unquestionable power of the king above all his vassals a form of organization that as we see was for Robespierre as well as for many of us completely unfair of beginning to end.
64. People are always worth more than individuals.
Isolated as individuals we have no power to act, but acting in a group, people are capable of carrying out acts that until then seemed impossible.
65. Any institution that does not assume that the people are good and the magistrate corruptible is bad.
The laws should undoubtedly protect the entire population and unfortunately that was something that in Robespierre's France many times did not happen.
66. Fortunately, virtue is natural in people, despite aristocratic prejudices.
As human beings we are all capable of doing both good and evil and that is why the presumption of innocence must always be guaranteed in a state of law.
67. A nation is truly corrupt when, having gradually lost its character and freedom, it slips from democracy to aristocracy or monarchy; this is the death of the body politic by decrepitude.
According to this thinker, democracy was the only political system that deserved to be respected because it was the only one who always ensured the rights and equality of all citizens of a certain condition.
68. Death is not an eternal dream!
As we can see, Robespierre did not have a very romantic idea about death, for he is simply always was, the end of the person that until that moment we had been.
69. The politics of the London Cabinet contributed greatly to the first movement of our Revolution.
It was inspired by foreign ideas that the French decided to end their monarchical system a data that shows us how simple ideas are totally capable of changing the lives of millions of people.
70. Louis XVI…. He's an idiot, say what they say about a reputation that has become too puffed up.
As we can see, respect was something that Robespierre at the time decided to put aside, because the French king until then represented a figure that he simply hated.
71. The objective of the constitutional government is to preserve the Republic; that of the revolutionary government is to lay its foundations.
At the end of the revolution, France had to rebuild itself, in this case, using the phrase equality, freedom and fraternity as its highest aspiration.
72. Hence, everything that tends to excite love of the country, to purify manners, to exalt mind, to orient the passions of the human heart toward the public good, must adopt it and set it.
The state is the one that must promote a correct attitude on the part of the entire population, giving greater wings to those who They dedicate their time to doing good and putting sticks in the wheels of those who dedicate their time to harming the neighbor.
73. If it is for their salvation that they take up arms against their oppressors, how can they be forced to adopt a form of punishment that represents a new danger to themselves?
It was logical that the French people at one point took up arms. Robespierre was only at that time a simple spectator of something over which he had no control.
74. People do not judge in the same way as the courts; they do not pass sentences, they shoot rays; they do not condemn kings, they throw them into the void; and this justice is worth as much as that of the courts.
Justice does not always have to come through the courts and more taking into account that French society was totally corrupt and the population was aware of it.
75. What is the first object of society? It is to maintain the imprescriptible rights of man. What is the first of those rights? The right to life.
We all have the right to live and although the revolution caused the death of both King Louis and all his entourage, we can be sure that this was something the revolutionaries were never proud.