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

— Maximilien Robespierre Speech on the Trial of Louis XVI (1792)

Je prononce à regret cette fatale vérité... mais Louis doit mourir, parce qu'il faut que la patrie vive.

Original text (French)

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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.

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.

There is one thing more despicable than a tyrant— it is a nation of slaves.

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Attribution

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.