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

Our party’s most outstanding mediocrity.

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

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

The people will have the right to elect their representatives from a list of candidates [who have been approved by the Party].

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

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

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

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

In spite of the existence of the Soviet Union, however, the proletarian revolution during the past years has not recorded a victory in any other country.

In inner-party politics, these methods lead, as we shall yet see, to this: the party organization substitutes itself for the party, the central committee substitutes itself for the organization, and, finally, a dictator substitutes himself for the central committee.

The theory of the permanent revolution, in contradiction to the theory of socialism in one country, was recognized by the entire Bolshevik party during the period from 1917 to 1923.

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!

Where the sole employer is the state, [opposition] means death by slow starvation.

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

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

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?

Do you suppose there is any living man so unreasonable that if he found himself stricken with a dangerous ailment he would not anxiously desire to regain the blessing of health?

Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous

Beauty, like ice, our footing does betray; Who can tread sure on the smooth, slippery way: Pleased with the surface, we glide swiftly on, And see the dangers that we cannot shun.

All delays are dangerous in war.

I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature and that power, whether vested in many or a few, is ever grasping, and like the grave, cries, ‘Give, give.’

I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature.

There’s a danger in the internet and social media. The notion that information is enough, that more and more information is enough, that you don’t have to think, you just have to get more information – gets very dangerous.

True, a little learning is a dangerous thing, but it still beats total ignorance.