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Happily virtue is natural in the people, [despite] aristocratical prejudices. A nation is truly corrupt, when, after having, by degrees lost its character and liberty, it slides from democracy into aristocracy or monarchy; this is the death of the political body by decrepitude....

— Maximilien Robespierre On Political Morality (1794)

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More quotes by Maximilien Robespierre

Any institution which does not suppose the people are good, and the magistrate is corruptible, is evil.

It is with regret that I pronounce the fatal truth: Louis must die, so that the country may live.

Speech on the Trial of Louis XVI (1792)

The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.

Every citizen fulfilling the conditions of eligibility that you have prescribed has the right to public office.

You constantly allege the declaration of human rights, the principles of liberty, and you yourselves believed in it so little that you constitutionally decreed slavery.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Maximilien Robespierre (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.