Jacques Barzun on Revolution (From Dawn to Decadence):

“Revolutions paradoxically being by promising freedom and then turn coercive and 'puritanical,' to save themselves from both discredit and reaction. Creating a purer life requires that people forget other aims; therefore public and private life must be regimented. That is why the theme applicable to revolution is Emancipation and not Freedom. Old shackles are thrown off, tossed high in the air, but come down again as moral duty well enforced.”