Marquis de Lafayette Quotes
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When the government violates the people's rights, insurrection is, for the people and for each portion of the people, the most sacred of the rights and the most indispensible of duties.
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I became obnoxious to the Jacobins because I reprobated their aristocracy, which aimed at usurping all legitimate authority.
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Protestants in France are under intolerable despotism. Although open persecution does not now exist, yet it depends upon the whim of the king, queen, parliament, or any of the ministry.
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Do not let us despair of the cause of liberty: it is still dear to the hearts of Frenchmen, and we shall one day have the felicity of seeing it established in our beloved country.
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In America there are none poor, and none even that can be called peasants. Each citizen has some property, and all citizens have the same rights as the richest individual, or landed proprietor, in the country.
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No person is more convinced than I am of the necessity of giving great splendour and energy to the great hereditary magistracy exercised by the king; but in a free country, there can only be citizens and public officers.
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The American women are very pretty and have great simplicity of character, and the extreme neatness of their appearance is truly delightful: cleanliness is everywhere even more studiously attended to here than in England.
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Though my conduct on the 10th of August 1792 was the act of my life of which I have most reason to be proud, I will here merely do homage to the worthy martyrs of the national sovereignty and the sworn laws, who, while they supported constitutional royalty, manifested the highest degree of republican virtue.
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We still are pestered by two parties: the aristocratic, which is panting for a counter revolution, and the factious, which aims at the division of the empire and destruction of the authority - and perhaps of the lives - of the reigning branch, both of which parties are fomenting troubles.
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Never was a man further from a partiality for Spain than I am. But I think I now have left them in a sincere and steady intention to cultivate the friendship of America.
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My grand affair appears settled, for America is certain of her independence, humanity has gained her cause, and liberty will never be without a place of refuge.
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Paris is in a tranquil state; the infernal cabal that besieges me appears guided by foreigners. This idea consoles me, for nothing is so painful as being persecuted by one's own fellow-citizens.