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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

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Maximilien Robespierre
Age: 36 †
Born: 1758
Born: May 6
Died: 1794
Died: July 28
Journalist
Lawyer
Politician
Revolutionary
Atrecht
Maximilien Marie Isidore de Robespierre
Maximilien de Robespierre
Maximilien-François-Marie-Isidore de Robespierre
Robespierre
The Incorruptible
Time
Thus
Impotent
Revolution
Prompts
Virtue
Attribute
Justice
Fatal
Peace
Severe
Government
Attributes
Emanation
Without
Popular
Inflexible
Nothing
Terror
Prompt

More quotes by Maximilien Robespierre

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Establish liberty on a rock of brass.
Maximilien Robespierre
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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
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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
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Crime butchers innocence to secure a throne, and innocence struggles with all its might against the attempts of crime.
Maximilien Robespierre
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Any law which violates the inalienable rights of man is essentially unjust and tyrannical it is not a law at all.
Maximilien Robespierre
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The king must die so that the country can live.
Maximilien Robespierre
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Softness to traitors will destroy us all.
Maximilien Robespierre
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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
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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 Robespierre
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Omelets are not made without breaking eggs.
Maximilien Robespierre
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The aim of constitutional government is to preserve the Republic that of revolutionary government is to lay its foundation.
Maximilien Robespierre
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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
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Citizens, did you want a revolution without revolution?
Maximilien Robespierre
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The general will rules in society as the private will governs each separate individual.
Maximilien Robespierre
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No one loves armed missionaries the first lesson of nature and prudence is to repulse them as enemies.
Maximilien Robespierre
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Any institution which does not suppose the people good, and the magistrate corruptible, is evil.
Maximilien Robespierre
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Atheism is aristocratic the idea of a great Being that watches over oppressed innocence and punishes triumphant crime is altogether popular.
Maximilien Robespierre
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Terror is nothing else than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible.
Maximilien Robespierre
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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
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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