“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.”

In France, the leader of Jacobinism perished on the guillotine; with us, the change of leadership was achieved by means of arrest and banishment. The technique of the process is gentler, but its essence is the same.

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

Revolutions are always verbose.

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

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

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

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

With all due respect to all philistines, the dictatorship of the proletariat does just consist in “giving a hiding” to the classes that were previously supreme, before forcing them to recognize the new order and to submit to it.

I feel here that this time they have succeeded.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

The perpetual obstacle to human advancement is custom.

Whatever may be the laws and customs of a country, women always give the tone to morals.

The universality of a custom is pledge of its worth.

The Roman state stands by ancient customs, and its manhood.

How many things both just and unjust are sanctioned by custom?

We live always under the weight of the old and odious customs… of our barbarous ancestors.

The custom is often noticed in the Old Testament, and still prevails in the east, and in some of the newly discovered South Sea Islands.

Men of sense in all ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your sex.