Our planet is being turned into a filthy and evil-smelling imperialist barrack.
LEON TROTSKYLet a man find himself, in distinction from others, on top of two wheels with a chain – at least in a poor country like Russia – and his vanity begins to swell out like his tires. In America it takes an automobile to produce this effect.
More Leon Trotsky Quotes
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The fall of the present bureaucratic dictatorship [in the Soviet Union], if it were not replaced by a new socialist power, would thus mean a return to capitalist relations with a catastrophic decline of industry and culture.
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To overthrow the power of the bourgeoisie and to establish the power of the proletariat in one country still does not signify the full victory of Socialism.
LEON TROTSKY -
Workers – men and women – of all countries, place yourselves under the banner of the Fourth International. It is the banner of your approaching victory!
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The fundamental flaw of vulgar thought lies in the fact that it wishes to content itself with motionless imprints of a reality which consists of eternal motion.
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In 1917 there was not a single Bolshevik who considered possible the realization of a socialist society in a single country, and least of all in Russia.
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The usages and methods of warfare are thus determined by changing circumstances and, therefore, they themselves can in nowise be eternal.
LEON TROTSKY -
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?
LEON TROTSKY -
In a serious struggle there is no worse cruelty than to be magnanimous at an inopportune time.
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Everything is relative in this world, where change alone endures.
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One of the most surprising things in life is the sudden realization that one has become old.
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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.
LEON TROTSKY -
Our party’s most outstanding mediocrity.
LEON TROTSKY -
The pillars of Hercules of the United States are vulgarity and stupidity.
LEON TROTSKY -
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 -
Our differences with [Joseph] Stalin are entirely of a strategical character.
LEON TROTSKY -
In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation. The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall not eat.
LEON TROTSKY -
You are pitiful isolated individuals; you are bankrupts; your role is played out. Go where you belong from now on – into the dustbin of history!
LEON TROTSKY -
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 -
The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.
LEON TROTSKY -
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.
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Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravity.
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The Soviet Union needs thinking and critical friends, such as are capable not only of singing hymns in the hours of success, but of not shrinking in the hour of defeat and danger.
LEON TROTSKY -
Learning carries within itself certain dangers because out of necessity one has to learn from one’s enemies.
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The revolution has its own laws: in the period of its culmination it pushes the most highly developed, determined and far-seeing stratum of the revolutionary class to the most advanced positions.
LEON TROTSKY -
The people will have the right to elect their representatives from a list of candidates [who have been approved by the Party].
LEON TROTSKY -
Capitalism does live by crises and booms, just as a human being lives by inhaling and exhaling.
LEON TROTSKY