WHAT OTHERS HAVE SAID ABOUT STONES AND REBELLION

William Shakespeare:


And this our life exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
I would not change it.

As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 1


This earth shall have a feeling, and these stones
Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king
Shall falter under foul rebellion’s arms!

King Richard the Second, Act 3, Scene 2


It will have blood; they say blood will have blood
Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak
Augurs . . . .

Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 4


O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies
In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities . . .

Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2


Abraham Lincoln:

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. 
Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, 
they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, 
or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.

First Inaugural Address, 4 March 1861


Wilfrid Laurier:

What is hateful is not rebellion, it is the despotism that induces that rebellion;
what is hateful are not rebels but the men who, having the enjoyment of power,
do not discharge the duties of power; those men who when they are asked for a loaf,
give a stone.

                           
House of Commons, 16 March 1886,
                            following the execution of Louis Riel


William Lyon Mackenzie King:


Our generation regards the men of 1837, not as rebels, but as martyrs for Canadian freedom

Niagara Falls, Ontario, 18 June 1938


House of Commons Resolution:


In the opinion of this House, the Government should officially
recognize the historical contribution of the Patriots of Lower Canada
and the Reformers of Upper Canada to the establishment of a system of
responsible democratic government.


House of Commons, 13 December 1994