Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

“ If she rises, the people rise with her; if she falls, they fall. No liberty can be conquered without her; no conspiracy of despotism would prevail against her. Let us study the causes of our grandeur and of our decadence, that we may be strong, in the future, in our resolutions, and that the people, sure of our support, form together with us, without fear, the holy alliance of Liberty and Equality.
I shall seek the causes that have brought us democracy's misfortune, and that prevent us from achieving the promises that we made for her. ”

“ As the kings coalesce from one end of Europe to the other against the nations;
As the vicar of Jesus Christ launches an anathema to liberty;
As the republicans fall crushed beneath the walls of their cities:
The Republic remains the ideal of societies, and liberty outraged reappears almost as the sun after an eclipse.
Yes, we are defeated and humiliated; yes, thanks to our indiscipline, our revolutionary incapacity, we are all dispersed, imprisoned, disarmed, mute. The fate of European democracy has fallen from our civic hands as from those of the praetorians. ”

“ Hear the revelation of a man who was mistaken sometimes, but who was always faithful. My voice came to you, like the confession of a condemned man, like the conscience of the prison.
France has been set as an example to the nations. In abasement as in glory, she is still the queen of the world. ”