“Only an armed people can be the real bulwark of popular liberty.”

It would be the greatest mistake, certainly, to think that concessions mean peace. Nothing of the kind. Concessions are nothing but a new form of war.

The soundest strategy in war is to postpone operations until the moral disintegration of the enemy renders the delivery of the mortal blow both possible and easy.

Give me your four year olds, and in a generation I will build a socialist state.

We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, and scorn toward those who disagree with us.

Autocracy cannot do without its twin agents: a hangman and a priest, the first to suppress popular resistance by force, the second to sweeten and embellish the lot of the oppressed with empty promises of a heavenly kingdom.

The bourgeoisie is many times stronger than we. To give it the weapon of freedom of the press is to ease the enemy’s cause, to help the class enemy. We do not desire to end in suicide, so we will not do this.

The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency.

Atheism is the natural and inseparable part of Communism.

Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism.

One must always try to be as radical as reality itself.

How can you make a revolution without executions?

A democracy is a state which recognizes the subjection of the minority to the majority, that is, an organization for the systematic use of violence by one class against the other, by one part of the population against another.

Only by abolishing private property in land and building cheap and hygienic dwellings can the housing problem be solved.

We must pursue the removal of church property by any means necessary in order to secure for ourselves a fund of several hundred million gold rubles.

We do not have time to play at “oppositions” at “conferences.” We will keep our political opponents,whether open or disguised as “nonparty,” in prison.

Trust is good, but control is better.

I like to say now that the reason I’m conservative is because I used to be a liberal, and I learned a lot.

Liberals always exempt themselves from the rules that they impose on others.

Liberals get credit for good intentions, and that’s about it, because everything they do fails.

Liberty is seen as virtuous by most.

Every girl and every boy that’s born alive is either a little liberal or else a little conservative.

Enraging liberals is simply one of the more enjoyable side effects of my wisdom.

You can kill a revolutionary but you can’t kill revolution, you can jail a liberator but you can’t jail liberation.

The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.