"Pity is treason" π compilation, a.k.a. What He Really Said
because I've been tearing apart Robespierre's speeches for two days & kept coming across more and more examples that, to me, demonstrate not viciousness but consistency, commitment to equality, and efforts on behalf of the common people, and it is worth sharing with the class π (+thank you to @anotherhumaninthisworld & @montagnarde1793 for even more quotes I hadn't found!!)
"The sensibility that groans almost exclusively for the enemies of liberty is suspect to me."
"I asked the assembly, which you still call the Constituent Assembly, to abolish the death penalty, and it is not my fault if the first principles of reason seemed to them moral and political heresies. But if you never thought of claiming them in favor of so many unfortunate people, whose offenses are less their own than than those of the government. Why, of all people, do you in the government, by what fatal twist of fate, remember this only to plead the cause of the greatest of all criminals? You demand an exception to the death penalty for this man alone who can justify it?"
"...a people whose freedom is still being contested, after so many sacrifices and struggles; a people among whom the laws are still inexorable only for the unfortunate; a people among whom the crimes of tyranny are subjects of dispute, must desire to be avenged; and the generosity with which we are flattered would too closely resemble that of a band of brigands dividing their spoils."
"...We are tender towards oppressors because we are heartless towards the oppressed."
"...Let us beware lest, through excessive scruples, we render ourselves criminal; let us beware lest by showing too much indulgence toward the guilty, we place ourselves in their stead."
"Sensitivity that sacrifices innocence to crime is a cruel sensitivity; clemency that compromises with tyranny is barbaric."
" "Indulgence for the Royalists!" cry certain people. "Pardon for the scoundrels!" No: pardon for innocence, pardon for the weak, pardon for the unfortunate, pardon for humanity!"
I wouldn't be surprised if there are more; once I started looking for this particular theme/reasoning, it seemed to crop up everywhere!
You can definitely argue over how things play out in practice. E.g., what do you do when powerful people use "the unfortunate, "the weak", "the oppressed, who will end up getting caught & taking the fall while the ones behind the curtain get away & keep operating? What about where the line between oppressor/oppressed isn't so clear? (An impoverished royalist? A revolutionary aristocrat? People manipulated by misinformation?) But his belief, and what he demonstrably keeps fighting for, is far from cruel or dictatorial. How is what he says any different from out own modern anger when people in power keep getting away with hurting others, when they are allowed to carry on or are given minuscule consequences that don't even slow them down, while regular people are condemned for much tinier offenses?
edited to add 2 more that I already had & forgot :)