“I am a bad, wicked man, but I am practicing moral self-purification; I don’t eat meat any more, I now eat rice cutlets.”

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

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.

We would be deceiving both ourselves and the people if we concealed from the masses the necessity of a desperate, bloody war of extermination, as the immediate task of the coming revolutionary action.

You must have your heart on fire and your brain on ice.

The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them in parliament.

Truth is the most precious thing. That’s why we should ration it.

Don’t be afraid to admit defeat. Learn from defeat. Do over again more thoroughly, more carefully, and more systematically what you have done badly.

Those who are opposed to armed uprising. Must be ruthlessly kicked out as enemies, traitors and cowards.

Politics are not a science based on logic; they are the capacity of always choosing at each instant, in constantly changing situations, the least harmful, the most useful.

Nothing endures but change.

Souls never die, but always on quitting one abode pass to another. All things change, nothing perishes.

I think daughters can change the perception of their fathers.

Every single problem is a gift that changes you for the good.

The way of love is the way of no-expectation. Love exists only when there is a total acceptance and no desire to change anything.

People’s minds are changed through observation and not through argument.

There is nothing permanent except change.