Louis Antoine de Saint-Just - Public Quotes

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Insurrection is the exclusive right of the people and of the citizen. Every foreigner, every man clothed with public authority, is outlawed if he proposes it and must be put to death as a usurper of sovereignty and as interested in fomenting troubles for the purpose of doing evil or of adorning himself. Insurrections taking place under a despotism are always salutary. Those which break out in a free state are sometimes dangerous for liberty itself, because the revolt usurps its sublime pretexts and its sacred name. Revolts in free states leave long and painful wounds which bleed a whole century.

Louis Antoine de Saint-Just

What produces the general good is always terrible or seems bizarre when begun too soon... The Revolution must stop itself at the perfection of public happiness and liberty through the laws.

Louis Antoine de Saint-Just

Peace and prosperity, public virtue, victory, everything is in the vigor of the laws. Outside of the laws everything is sterile and dead.

Louis Antoine de Saint-Just