"The spirit of rebellion is a spirit of desperation-a desperate rejection of whatever exists, a desperate aspiration toward some kind of utopia. ...It is governed by a blind momentum... and its so-called leaders are... its captives, and ultimately its victims. ...The so-called "betrayal" is... the necessary conclusion... [I]ts impossible intentions are unrealizable... [T]he end result is... a regime which pretends to embody these intentions and... enforces such false pretentions by terror. A revolution... is a... practical exercise in political philosophy. ...It requires an attentive prudence, a careful calculation of means and ends, a spirit of sobriety... [A] successful revolution cannot be governed by the spirit of the mob. ...[I]f ...revolution is not to degenerate into a rebellion, mob actions must be marginal... [O]nly a self-disciplined people can... undertake... a revolution. ...[A] successful revolution is best accomplished by a people who do not really want it at all, but find themselves reluctantly making it."
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Original Language: English
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Sources
Irving Kristol, "The American Revolution as a Successful Revolution" America's Continuing Revolution: An Act of Conservation (1973) Distinguished Lecture Series on the Bicentennial, Delivered in St. John's Church on Lafayette Square, Washington, D. C. on October 12, 1973, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, pp. 10-11.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Revolution
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Revolution
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