Louis Antoine de Saint-Just Quotes

It is impossible to reign innocently.

A nation regenerates itself only upon heaps of corpses.

The vessel of Revolution can arrive at port only on a sea reddened by torrents of blood.

Most arts have produced miracles, while the art of government has produced nothing but monsters.

In every Revolution a dictator is needed to save the state by force, or censors to save it by virtue.

Fame is an empty noise. Let us put our ears to the centuries that have gone: we no longer hear anything; those who, at another time, shall walk among our urns, shall hear no more. The good - that is what we must pursue, whatever the price, preferring the title of a dead hero to that of a living coward.

Monarchy is an outrage which even the blind of an entire people cannot justify... all men hold from nature the secret mission to destroy wherever it my be found. No man can reign innocently. The folly is too evident. Every king is a rebel and a usurper. Do kings themselves treat otherwise those who seek to usurp their authority?

One does not make revolutions by halves.

Keep cool and you command everybody.

If all people are free, all are equal. If they are equal, they are just.

To dare: that is the whole secret of revolutions.

It has always seemed to me that the social order was implicit in the very nature of things, and required nothing more from the human spirit than care in arranging the various elements; that a people could be governed without being made thralls or libertines or victims thereby; that man was born for peace and liberty, and became miserable and cruel only through the action of insidious and oppressive laws. And I believe therefore that if man be given laws which harmonize with the dictates of nature and of his heart he will cease to be unhappy and corrupt.

I have not found a single good man in government; I have found good only in the people.

I do not belong to any faction, I will fight them all.

One cannot reign innocently: the insanity of doing so is evident. Every king is a rebel and a usurper.

When human statecraft attaches a chain to the feet of a free man, whom it makes a slave in contempt of nature and citizenship, eternal justice rivets the other end about the tyrant's neck.

Morality is stronger than tyrants.

Dare! - this word contains all the politics of our revolution.

The Revolution has grown cold; all its principles are weakened; there remains only red caps worn by intriguers. The exercise of terror has made crime blasé, as strong liquors made the palace blasé.

Let Revolutionists be Romans, not Tatars.

When a people, having become free, establish wise laws, their revolution is complete.

Every political edict which is not based upon nature is wrong.

When a people, having become free, establish wise laws, their revolution is complete... Peace and prosperity, public virtue, victory, everything is in the vigor of the laws. Outside of the laws, everything is sterile and dead.

The legislator commands the future; to be feeble will avail him nothing: it is for him to will what is good and to perpetuate it; to make man what he desires to be: for the laws, working upon the social body, which is inert in itself, can produce either virtue or crime, civilized customs or savagery.

In the circumstances in which the Republic finds itself, the constitution cannot be inaugurated; it would destroy itself. The provisional government of France is revolutionary until there is peace.