The 85 best phrases of Robespierre
Radical and undisputed leader of the French Revolution, Maximilien Robespierre was a French lawyer, writer, speaker and politician who was nicknamed "The Incorruptible." He was the head of the most radical faction of the member of the Committee for Public Salvation, the entity that ruled France between 1793 and 1794, a revolutionary period known as The Terror.
In this article, we will rescue the most powerful reflections of Robespierre to see how far the radical ideas of this political and social revolution went.
- We recommend you read: "The 50 best phrases of Joan of Arc"
Great phrases by Maximilien Robespierre
As a tribute to his faithful ideals of freedom and a government free from corruption, we have brought the best quotes from the incorruptible Robespierre.
1. Government in a revolution is the despotism of freedom against tyranny.
There are governments that are a dictatorship.
2. You must still govern your conduct according to the stormy circumstances in which the Republic finds itself, and the plan of your administration must be the result of the spirit of revolutionary government combined with the general principles of democracy.
Talking about the necessary change that everyone must take without exception.
3. How long will the fury of the despots be called justice and the justice of the people, barbarism or rebellion?
A phrase that is valid today.
4. How much tenderness towards the oppressors, how inflexibility towards the oppressed!
The money of the oppressors can buy your freedom.
5. Terror is nothing more than swift, severe, inflexible justice.
Relentless justice.
6. I understand that it is easy for the league of tyrants of the world to sink a single man.
No man can defend himself from a horde against him.
7. Under the despotic regime, everything is mean, everything is petty, the sphere of vices, like that of virtues, is reduced.
When a government is corrupt, all of its people end up being corrupt as well.
8. We must fear the value of our opinions, the flexibility of our duties.
Our opinions are strong.
9. Souls of mud, who do not value more than gold, I do not want to touch your treasures, no matter how impure their origin.
Referring to all the times they wanted to bribe him.
10. Free countries are those in which the rights of man are respected and where the laws, therefore, are just.
The ideal form of a free country.
11. The secret of freedom lies in educating people, while the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.
A truth that is as real as it is feared.
12. He who asks shyly is exposed to being denied what he asks without conviction.
We must become strong to confront those who want to keep us in hiding.
13. The worst of all despotisms is the military government.
It seems (based on history and facts) that the military is not cut out for politics.
14. 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.
Every crime must be punished, without exception, unless the innocence of the accused is proven.
15. Punishing the oppressors of freedom is mercy, forgiving them is barbarism.
Those who attack freedom are a threat to society.
16. A great revolution is nothing more than a thunderous crime that destroys another crime.
Revolutions are a double-edged sword. They can secure freedom or create permanent chaos.
17. The power of slander was limited to dividing brothers, spoiling spouses, building the fortune of a schemer on the ruin of an honest man.
The best way to create discord between people is through slander.
18. It is much more urgent to make poverty honorable than to outlaw opulence.
Wealth creates emptiness in people, while poverty can be a reason for improvement.
19. 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.
Sometimes it is difficult to build a new favorable image when it is already tainted.
20. Because I feel compassion for the oppressed, I cannot feel it for the oppressors.
It is impossible to feel the opposite or have the same feeling for both sides.
21. When the government violates the rights of the people, insurrection is for the people the most sacred and indispensable of duties.
Insurrections do not occur for pleasure, but for the need to regain freedom.
22. The king must die so the country can live.
Referring to the abolition of the monarchy.
23. 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.
Replace negative, banal and consumer issues with value and appreciation of good manners.
24. A throne can be overthrown by force, but only wisdom can found a republic.
A very wise phrase to ponder.
25. 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?
Having your efforts recognized, even if it is to criticize them, is synonymous with being on the right track.
26. No, death is not an eternal dream.
Death is just the end of life.
27. If they invoke heaven, it is to usurp the earth.
Many politicians use power not to make an appropriate change, but to take advantage of their position.
28. He did not unleash revolutions except in the antechambers and the cabinets of the kings: the noblest of his feats consisted in changing a minister's position or in banishing a courtier.
Talking about 'changes' that were really just convenience.
29. We can't make an omelette without breaking the eggs.
A historical phrase that is valid today. You can't be successful without falling down a few times.
30. When work is a pleasure, life is a joy! When work is a duty, life is slavery.
The two faces of work.
31. What is the objective towards which we are heading? The peaceful enjoyment of freedom and equality, the kingdom of that eternal justice whose laws are written, not on marble. or on stone, but in the hearts of all men, even the slave who forgets them and the tyrant who denies them.
The goal of overthrowing a tyranny is to restore the values of integrity and equality in the people.
32. You can abandon yourself to a happy and triumphant homeland. But threatened, shattered, and oppressed, she is never left; you save it or die for it.
It is impossible to leave a country that restricts you so much that you cannot aspire to travel.
33. Death is the beginning of immortality.
Only with death are people truly remembered.
34. 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.
Egoism does not always come from bad people, sometimes it comes from the hand of those who proclaim human well-being.
35. Erase from the tombs that impious inscription, which spreads a funeral crepe over nature and constitutes an insult to death.
Death is an inevitable part of life.
36. Isn't he the sovereign, at least in fact. Isn't it in the town's place? And what is the Homeland if not the country of which one is a citizen and participant in sovereignty?
In theory, the sovereign of a nation should be the highest representation of the people.
37. Man was born for happiness and for freedom and everywhere he is slave and unhappy!
Before it was because of the despotism of the rulers, now we are slaves of labor demands.
38. If the spring of popular government in peace is virtue, the spring of government in revolution is both virtue and terror: virtue, without which terror is fatal; the terror without which virtue is powerless.
Terror can become the necessary drive to succeed.
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.
A revolution cannot follow the same path as the one it has overthrown.
40. Ignorance is the basis of despotism and man is truly free the day he can say to tyrants: "Retreat, I am old enough to be able to rule myself"
We should aspire to rule ourselves, rather than letting someone else rule us.
41. Any institution that does not assume that the people are good and the magistrate corruptible is vicious.
Institutions must always act in favor of the people.
42. 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.
Unfortunately there are occasions where the law only benefits the highest bidder.
43. Government in a revolution is the despotism of freedom against tyranny.
The oppressive government will never change.
44. Society has as its goal the preservation of its rights and the perfection of its being; and everywhere society degrades and oppresses him!
Society betrays us and forces us to act against our values.
45. Since the essence of the Republic or democracy is equality, the love of the country necessarily includes the love of equality.
You cannot have a democratic nation without promoting equality.
46. Freedom and virtue have barely settled for a moment on some points of the globe.
There are more stories of corruption and dictatorship than those that speak of freedom.
47. 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.
An interesting reflection on the duties in freedom.
48. No one can rise above the limits of his character.
Our character is what allows us to move forward or backward.
49. The slowness of the trials is equivalent to impunity, the fluctuation of the sentence stimulates all the guilty.
Why do trials sometimes seem to benefit criminals?
50. The time has come to remind you of her true destinies!
Mention towards the overthrow of tyranny.
51. 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 way in which any company achieves its success is through its human component.
52. Weakness, vices and prejudices are the ways of royalty.
Speaking of the dark side of the monarchy.
53. Crime kills innocence to get a prize and innocence fights with all its might against crime attempts.
A great analogy of crime and innocence.
54. Our statement seems made not for men, but for the rich.
Again, Robespierre reminds us that laws seem made for whoever can buy them.
55. It is, then, in the principles of democratic government where you must look for the rules of your political conduct.
It is democracy that must set the example of good government.
56. Those who deny the immortality of the soul do themselves justice.
We are all mortal.
57. Pity is treason.
Criminals don't deserve our pity.
58. There are some useful men, but none are essential. Only the people are immortal.
They are all replaceable.
59. When the public force only supports the general will, the State is free and peaceful. When he opposes it, the state is enslaved.
The public force, as its name indicates, must be for the benefit of the people.
60. It has been said that Terror was the force of despotic government.
Many rulers use fear to intimidate their people and submit them to their will.
61. If virtue is perfect, perhaps man is imperfect.
All people are imperfect.
62. Nothing is fair more than honesty; nothing is useful more than fair.
Justice and honesty go hand in hand.
63. The sole foundation of civil society is morality.
Morality makes men whole persons.
64. In aristocratic states the word homeland only means something to patrician families that have usurped sovereignty.
Apparently the homeland can also be bought.
65. I was born to fight crime, not to rule it.
Speaking about his role as a person of justice and not as a ruler.
66. Freedom, equality, fraternity.
A motto that all nations should put into practice.
67. All the vices and all the ridiculousness of the monarchy for all the virtues of the Republic.
What Robespierre had in mind when changing the government.
68. Only under a democratic regime is the State really the homeland of all the individuals that compose it.
The homeland is that land in which we live.
69. Any law that violates the inalienable rights of man is essentially unjust and tyrannical, it is not a law at all.
Talking about how a law shouldn't be.
70. Wherever a good man is, wherever he is seated, reach out and embrace him closely.
It is to these men that you have to show kindness and give them the tools to grow.
71. Democracy is a State in which the sovereign people, guided by laws of their own making, act for themselves whenever possible, and for their delegates when they cannot act for themselves.
The way it exposes what democracy is like.
72. The world has changed, and it has yet to change.
The world must never stop moving forward.
73. To found and consolidate democracy among us, to reach the peaceful reign of laws constitutional laws, it is necessary to end the war of freedom against tyranny and successfully overcome the storms of the Revolution.
To achieve peace, it is necessary to defend the rights of the people.
75. When the tyranny collapses, let us try not to give it time to rise up.
It is useless to overthrow a tyranny if the next government will be an equal copy.
76. What is the fundamental principle of democratic or popular government, that is, the essential spring that sustains it and makes it move? It is virtue. I speak of public virtue, which worked so many wonders in Greece and Rome.
The virtue of the people that Robespierre dreamed of creating for his France at the time of the Revolution.
77. The centuries and the earth are the spoils of crime and tyranny.
It is the lands of the countries that are most affected by tyranny.
78. Not only is virtue the soul of democracy, but also it can only exist with this type of government.
Virtue cannot be part of any other government than a democratic one.
79. In the monarchy, I only know one individual who can love the country, and who does not even need virtue for that: the monarch.
The monarch is the one who makes the decisions to defend his homeland from him. Whether they are correct or not.
80. It is urgent that each citizen know, in order to assert and enforce what corresponds to them, the rights that he acquires by birth.
We must all enforce our rights.
81. By a consequence of the same principle, in aristocratic states, the word "homeland" only has any meaning for those who have monopolized sovereignty.
Robespierre explains that at that time only those who belonged to sovereignty were participants in the homeland.
82. Only in democracy is the State truly the Homeland of all the individuals that compose it, and it can count on as many defenders interested in its cause as there are citizens.
Why this conclusion? Because in democracy everyone can have a right and a voice.
83. The French are the first people in the world to have established a true democracy, calling all men to equality and the full rights of citizenship.
Referring to the movement of the French Revolution.
84. Since the soul of the Republic is virtue, equality, and your purpose is to found and consolidate the Republic.
As the goal was to consolidate a Republic, it is necessary to change everything that was once considered ‘ideal’ in a government.
85. The first rule of your political conduct should be to direct all your measures to the maintenance of equality and to the development of virtue, since the legislator's first care must be to strengthen the principle of government.
The speech continues with this phrase, which gives us to understand that it is the governor who must be an example of good virtues so that his people follow him.
