Leon Trotsky quotes - page 5

Insurrection is an art, and like all arts has its own laws. (Leon Trotsky)
Technique is noticed most markedly in the case of those who have not mastered it. View quote
Leon Trotsky
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. View quote
Leon Trotsky
Lenin's methods [of "hard" centralism and mistrust of the working class] lead 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 party must seek the guarantee of its stability in its own base, in an active and self-reliant proletariat, and not in its top caucus ... which the revolution may suddenly sweep away with its wing. View quote
Leon Trotsky
Both Hitler and Mussolini have plagiarized and imitated practically everything from everyone. Mussolini stole from the Bolsheviks and from Gabriele D'Annunzio, and found inspiration in the camp of big business. Hitler imitated the Bolsheviks and Mussolini. View quote
Leon Trotsky
The road to socialism lies through a period of the highest possible intensification of the principle of the state ... Just as a lamp, before going out, shoots up in a brilliant flame, so the state, before disappearing, assumes the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the most ruthless form of state, which embraces the life of the citizens authoritatively in every direction. View quote
Leon Trotsky
Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full. View quote
Leon Trotsky
Those who are afraid of rough work we don't want. View quote
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? Of course no one speaks about an exact mirror. No one even thinks of asking the new literature to have mirror-like impassivity. The deeper literature is, and the more it is imbued with the desire to shape life, the more significantly and dynamically it will be able to "picture" life. View quote
Leon Trotsky
War is most often a form of tyranny. It is best described by paraphrasing Trotsky's aphorism about the dialectic: "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you." View quote
Leon Trotsky
If the Revolution has the right to destroy bridges and art monuments whenever necessary, it will stop still less from laying its hand on any tendency in art which, no matter how great its achievement in form, threatens to disintegrate the revolutionary environment or to arouse the internal forces of the Revolution, that is, the proletariat, the peasantry and the intelligentsia, to a hostile opposition to one another. Our standard is, clearly, political, imperative and intolerant. (Leon Trotsky)
Socialism needs democracy like the human body needs oxygen. View quote
Leon Trotsky
I know well enough, from my own experience, the historical ebb and flow. They are governed by their own laws. Mere impatience will not expedite their change. View quote
Leon Trotsky
I felt the mechanics of power as an inescapable burden, rather than as a spiritual satisfaction. View quote
Leon Trotsky
A slave-owner who through cunning and violence shackles a slave in chains, and a slave who through cunning or violence breaks the chains. View quote
Leon Trotsky
Life in the future will not be monotonous. View quote
Leon Trotsky
Every oppositionist becomes ipso facto a terrorist. View quote
Leon Trotsky
Repression for the attainment of economic ends is a necessary weapon of the socialist dictatorship.** Terrorism and Communism : A Reply to Karl Kautsky (1920; 1975), p. 153* The road to socialism lies through a period of the highest possible intensification of the principle of the state ... Just as a lamp, before going out, shoots up in a brilliant flame, so the state, before disappearing, assumes the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, i. e., the most ruthless form of state, which embraces the life of the citizens authoritatively in every direction. View quote
Leon Trotsky
Everyone has the right to be stupid on occasion, but Comrade Macdonald abuses the privilege. View quote
Leon Trotsky
Ideas that enter the mind under fire remain there securely and for ever. View quote
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)
Man will become immeasurably stronger, wiser, and subtler his body will become more harmonious, his movements more rhythmic, his voice more musical. The forms of life will become dynamically dramatic. The average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above these heights, new peaks will rise. View quote
Leon Trotsky
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. View quote
Leon Trotsky
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. View quote
Leon Trotsky
The slanders poured down like Niagara. If you take into consideration the setting -- the war and the revolution -- and the character of the accused -- revolutionary leaders of millions who were conducting their party to the sovereign power -- you can say without exaggeration that July 1917 was the month of the most gigantic slander in world history. View quote
Leon Trotsky