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

Leon Trotsky

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

Camp Character Revolution Service
Tell me anyway–Maybe I can find the truth by comparing the lies.
LEON TROTSKY

Compare Finding Lying Truth
Ideas that enter the mind under fire remain there securely and for ever.
LEON TROTSKY

Ideas Mindset Secure
You may not be interested in strategy, but strategy is interested in you.
LEON TROTSKY

Interest Motivational Strategy Yourself
Learning carries within itself certain dangers because out of necessity one has to learn from one’s enemies.
LEON TROTSKY

Carry Dangerous Enemy Learning
One of the most surprising things in life is the sudden realization that one has become old.
LEON TROTSKY

Life Old Oneself Realize Surprise
Communism needs democracy like the human body needs oxygen.
LEON TROTSKY

Communism Democracy Need Oxygen
Life is not an easy matter… You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.
LEON TROTSKY

Easy Frustration Greatness Life Misery Personal Raise Weakness
City of prose and fantasy, of capitalist automation, its streets a triumph of cubism, its moral philosophy that of the dollar. New York impressed me tremendously because, more than any other city, it is the fullest expression of our modern age.
LEON TROTSKY

Age Expression Fantasy Modern Ourselves Success Triumph
In the appendix to my History of the Russian Revolution I give a detailed and documented study of the ideas of the Bolshevik party on the October revolution. This study, I hope, will make it impossible in the future to ascribe to [Vladimir] Lenin the theory of Socialism in a single country.
LEON TROTSKY

Country Detail History Hope Ideas Impossible Myself Revolution Willing
Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely.
LEON TROTSKY

Complete Decision Force Necessary
From being a patriotic myth, the Russian people have become an awful reality.
LEON TROTSKY

Patriotic People Reality
Under all conditions, well-organized violence seems to him the shortest distance between two points.
LEON TROTSKY

Condition Distance Organization Point Violence
Let us not forget that revolutions are accomplished through people, although they be nameless. Materialism does not ignore the feeling, thinking, and acting man, but explains him.
LEON TROTSKY

Accomplishment Act Explanation Forget Man Name Revolution
Is it possible to fulfill this task, is it possible to achieve the definite victory of Socialism in one country without the combined efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries? No, it is impossible.
LEON TROTSKY

Country Fulfill Impossible Possible Task
Against my protests a mausoleum was built on the Red Square, a monument unbecoming and offensive to the revolutionary consciousness.
LEON TROTSKY

Conscious Protect Revolution
Fascism is nothing but capitalist reaction.
LEON TROTSKY

Capital Fascism One Liner Reaction
There is a limit to the application of democratic methods. You can inquire of all the passengers as to what type of car they like to ride in, but it is impossible to question them as to whether to apply the brakes when the train is at full speed and accident threatens.
LEON TROTSKY

Accident Democracy Limitation Method Threat
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.
LEON TROTSKY

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

Abuse Privilege Right Stupidity
Nowhere else did repressions, purges, suppressions, and all other kinds of bureaucratic hooliganism in general acquire such horrifying scope as in Ukraine, in the struggle against powerful forces concealed in the Ukrainian masses that desired more freedom and independence.
LEON TROTSKY

Desire Force Freedom Government Independence Powerful Repression Struggle
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.
LEON TROTSKY

Particular Possible Quite Violence
The motive force of history is truth and not lies.
LEON TROTSKY

Force History Man Motive
The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.
LEON TROTSKY

End Justification Philosophy
The pillars of Hercules of the United States are vulgarity and stupidity.
LEON TROTSKY

State Statute Stupidity Vulgar
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.
LEON TROTSKY

Aspect Blind Force History Humanity Man Society Summary
Dialectical thought is related to vulgar thinking in the same way that a motion picture is related to a still photograph. The motion picture does not outlaw the still photograph but combines a series of them according to the laws of motion.
LEON TROTSKY

Law Motion Photograph Relate Thinking

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

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

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