Leon Trotsky
Life is not an easy matter... You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.Collection: Great
Learning carries within itself certain dangers because out of necessity one has to learn from one's enemies.Collection: Learning
Old age is the most unexpected of all things that happen to a man.Collection: Age
There is a limit to the application of democratic methods. You can inquire of all the passengers as to what type of car they like to ride in, but it is impossible to question them as to whether to apply the brakes when the train is at full speed and accident threatens.Collection: Car
There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war. Everything depends on circumstances.Collection: War
The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves.Collection: Strength
The historic ascent of humanity, taken as a whole, may be summarized as a succession of victories of consciousness over blind forces - in nature, in society, in man himself.Collection: Society
Everyone has the right to be stupid on occasion, but Comrade Macdonald abuses the privilege.
You may not be interested in strategy, but strategy is interested in you.
The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.
Revolutions are always verbose.
In a serious struggle there is no worse cruelty than to be magnanimous at an inopportune time.
From being a patriotic myth, the Russian people have become an awful reality.
Fascism is nothing but capitalist reaction.
Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely. But one must know the limitations of force; one must know when to blend force with a maneuver, a blow with an agreement.
Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravity.
England is nothing but the last ward of the European madhouse, and quite possibly it will prove to be the ward for particularly violent cases.
If we had more time for discussion we should probably have made a great many more mistakes.
The dynamic of revolutionary events is directly determined by swift, intense, and passionate changes in the psychology of classes which have already formed themselves before the revolution.
The masses go into a revolution not with a prepared plan of social reconstruction, but with a sharp feeling that they cannot endure the old regime. Only the guiding layers of a class have a political program, and even this still requires the test of events and the approval of the masses.
Ideas that enter the mind under fire remain there securely and for ever.
Insurrection is an art, and like all arts has its own laws.
Let a man find himself, in distinction from others, on top of two wheels with a chain - at least in a poor country like Russia - and his vanity begins to swell out like his tires. In America it takes an automobile to produce this effect.
Technique is noticed most markedly in the case of those who have not mastered it.
Events can neither be regarded as a series of adventures nor strung on the thread of a preconceived moral. They must obey their own laws.
If you cannot convince a Fascist, acquaint his head with the pavement.Collection: Pavement
In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation. The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall not eat.Collection: Death
Communism needs democracy like the human body needs oxygen.Collection: Oxygen
As long as I breathe I hope. As long as I breathe I shall fight for the future, that radiant future, in which man, strong and beautiful, will become master of the drifting stream of his history and will direct it towards the boundless horizons of beauty, joy and happiness!Collection: Beautiful
Tell me anyway--Maybe I can find the truth by comparing the lies.Collection: Lying
The people will have the right to elect their representatives from a list of candidates [who have been approved by the Party].Collection: Party
Religions are illogical primitive ignorance. There is nothing as ridiculous and tragic as a religious government.Collection: Religious
Everyone has a right to be stupid, but Comrade MacDonald abuses the privilege.Collection: Stupid
All the parties of capitalist society, all its moralists and all its sycophants will perish beneath the debris of the impending catastrophe. The only party that will survive is the party of the world socialist revolution.Collection: Communication
One of the most surprising things in life is the sudden realization that one has become oldCollection: Things In Life
When one runs with the wolves, one must howl with the pack.Collection: Running
Under all conditions, well-organized violence seems to him the shortest distance between two points.Collection: Distance
Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression, and violence, and enjoy it to the full.Collection: Beautiful
Our planet is being turned into a filthy and evil-smelling imperialist barrack.Collection: Evil
He who slanders the victim aids the executioner.Collection: Victim
Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely.Collection: Agreement
The dictatorship of the Communist Party is maintained by recourse to every form of violence.Collection: Wisdom
Root out the counterrevolutionaries without mercy, lock up suspicious characters in concentration camps... Shirkers will be shot, regardless of past service.Collection: Character
As long as human labor power, and, consequently, life itself, remain articles of sale and purchase, of exploitation and robbery, the principle of the “sacredness of human life” remains a shameful lie, uttered with the object of keeping the oppressed slaves in their chains.Collection: Lying
Fascism is nothing but capitalist reaction...Collection: Reactions
If one cannot get along without a mirror, even in shaving oneself, how can one reconstruct oneself or one's life, without seeing oneself in the "mirror" of literature?Collection: Mirrors
The Left Opposition declared that the new tempo of industrialization were above our forces, and that the liquidation of the kulaks as a class in the course of three years was a fantastic task, if one wishes to say so, we find ourselves this time "less radical" than the Stalinists.Collection: Class
Only in the Fall of 1924 did [Joseph] Stalin discover that it is especially Russia, as distinguished from other countries, which can by its own forces build up a socialist society.Collection: Country
The Soviet State does not need either illusions or camouflage. It can claim only that world authority which is confirmed by the facts.Collection: Doe
Yet the proletariat has not only a vanguard, but also a rearguard, and besides the proletariat there are the peasantry and the bureaucracy.Collection: Vanguard