Vanity made the [French] Revolution; liberty was only a pretext.

In revolution there are only two sorts of men, those who cause them and those who profit by them

I am the signet which marks the page where the revolution has been stopped; but when I die it will turn the page and resume its course. [Fr., Je suis le signet qui marque la page ou la revolution s'est arretee; mais quand je serai mort, elle tournera le feuillet et reprendra sa marche.]

A revolution is an idea which has found its bayonets.

A revolution can be neither made nor stopped. The only thing that can be done is for one of several of its children to give it a direction by dint of victories.

[Y]our national greatness, swelling vanity; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.