Leon Trotsky Quotes

If you cannot convince a Fascist, acquaint his head with the pavement.

Tell me anyway--Maybe I can find the truth by comparing the lies.

Our planet is being turned into a filthy and evil-smelling imperialist barrack.

Everyone has a right to be stupid, but Comrade MacDonald abuses the privilege.

Religions are illogical primitive ignorance. There is nothing as ridiculous and tragic as a religious government.

There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war. Everything depends on circumstances.

Communism needs democracy like the human body needs oxygen.

Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression, and violence, and enjoy it to the full.

Abusive language and swearing are a legacy of slavery, humiliation, and disrespect for human dignity, one’s own and that of other people.

Bureaucracy and social harmony are inversely proportional to each other.

Root out the counterrevolutionaries without mercy, lock up suspicious characters in concentration camps... Shirkers will be shot, regardless of past service.

The United States is not only the strongest, but also the most terrified country.

Fascism is nothing but capitalist reaction...

One of the most surprising things in life is the sudden realization that one has become old

Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravity.

The history of a revolution is for us first of all a history of the forcible entrance of the masses into the realm of rulership over their own destiny.

A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified.

The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.

‎The party that leans upon the workers but serves the bourgeoisie, in the period of the greatest sharpening of the class struggle, cannot but sense the smells wafted from the waiting grave.

You are pitiful isolated individuals; you are bankrupts; your role is played out. Go where you belong from now on - into the dustbin of history!

Revolutions are always verbose.

When one runs with the wolves, one must howl with the pack.

Learning carries within itself certain dangers because out of necessity one has to learn from one's enemies.

...capitalism does live by crises and booms, just as a human being lives by inhaling and exhaling.

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.

The revolution has its own laws: in the period of its culmination it pushes the most highly developed, determined and far-seeing stratum of the revolutionary class to the most advanced positions.

The pillars of Hercules of the United States are vulgarity and stupidity.

Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely.

Technique is noticed most markedly in the case of those who have not mastered it.

He who slanders the victim aids the executioner.

Old age is the most unexpected of all things that happen to a man.

The motive force of history is truth and not lies.

In a serious struggle there is no worse cruelty than to be magnanimous at an inopportune time.

Workers – men and women – of all countries, place yourselves under the banner of the Fourth International. It is the banner of your approaching victory!

Everything is relative in this world, where change alone endures.

Ideas that enter the mind under fire remain there securely and for ever.

The dictatorship of the Communist Party is maintained by recourse to every form of violence.

I emphasized the significance of revolutionary strategy.

If we close our eyes to the dark sides of the workers' State which we have helped to create, we shall never reach socialism.

There is no justice in bureaucracy for the individual, for bureaucracy caters only to itself. One cannot practice the same bureaucracy as one is fighting against.

Under all conditions, well-organized violence seems to him the shortest distance between two points.

Our differences with [Joseph] Stalin are entirely of a strategical character.

You may not be interested in strategy, but strategy is interested in you.

Look back at history - those who guided the revolution in the time of its culmination never kept their leading positions long after the turning point.

From being a patriotic myth, the Russian people have become an awful reality.

The fundamental flaw of vulgar thought lies in the fact that it wishes to content itself with motionless imprints of a reality which consists of eternal motion.

The revenge of history is more powerful than the revenge of the most powerful General Secretary.

The creative union of the conscious with the unconscious is what one usually calls 'inspiration.'

If we had more time for discussion we should probably have made a great many more mistakes.

Insurrection is an art, and like all arts has its own laws.