Maximilien Robespierre Quotes on Justice
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Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country's most urgent needs.
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Is it to be thought unreasonable that the people, in atonement for wrongs of a century, demand the vengeance of a single day?
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Again, it may be said, that to love justice and equality the people need no great effort of virtue; it is sufficient that they love themselves.
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Crime butchers innocence to secure a throne, and innocence struggles with all its might against the attempts of crime.
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To punish the oppressors of humanity is clemency; to forgive them is cruelty.
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What is the end of our revolution? The tranquil enjoyment of liberty and equality; the reign of that eternal justice, the laws of which are graven, not on marble or stone, but in the hearts of men, even in the heart of the slave who has forgotten them, and in that of the tyrant who disowns them.
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The attribute of popular government in a revolution is at one and the same time virtue and terror. Virtue without terror is fatal; terror without virtue is impotent....terror is nothing but justice; prompt, severe, inflexible. It is the emanation of virtue.'