Terry Pratchett's Discworld series is, well, utterly massive. My favorites are those books that deal with the City Watch, led by a deeply cynical but still Lawful Good ex-alcoholic copper named Sam Vimes. And my favorite Watch book is Night Watch, in which Vimes gets sent back 30 years in time to the eve of a violent street revolution. The whole scenario is a time-travelling riff on Les Mis, but you don't really need to know that to enjoy the book (which, fair warning, is pretty grim).
Anyway, being about a revolution, the book has plenty of wonderful cynical quotes about revolutions. Here's one of the best:
"There were plotters, there was no doubt about it. Some had been ordinary people who'd had enough. Some were young people with no money who objected to the fact that the world was run by old people who were rich. Some were in it to get girls. And some had been idiots [...] who were on the side of what they called "The People." Vimes had spent his life on the streets and had met decent men, and fools, and people who'd steal a penny from a blind beggar, and people who performed silent miracles or desperate crimes every day behind the grubby windows of little houses, but he'd never met The People."
And a bonus one:
"Don't put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That's why they're called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes."
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