On résiste à l'invasion des armées; on ne résiste pas à l'invasion des idées.

One resists the invasion of armies; one does not resist the invasion of ideas. | One withstands the invasion of armies; one does not withstand the invasion of ideas. | Histoire d'un Crime (The History of a Crime) [written 1852, published 1877], Conclusion, ch. X. Trans. T.H. Joyce and Arthur Locker | One cannot resist an idea whose time has come. | No one can resist an idea whose time has come. | Nothing is stronger than an idea whose time has come. | Armies cannot stop an idea whose time has come. | No army can stop an idea whose time has come. | Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come. | There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come. | Many of these paraphrases have a closer match in a passage from Gustave Aimard's earlier-published novel Les Francs-Tireurs (1861) | there is something more powerful than the brute force of bayonets: it is the idea whose time has come and hour struck | Original French: Il y a quelque chose de plus puissant que la force brutale des baïonnettes: c'est l'idée dont le temps est venu et l'heure est sonnée

s and paraphrased variants