Leon Trotsky Quotes (35 Quotes)


    Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely. But one must know the limitations of force; one must know when to blend force with a maneuver, a blow with an agreement.

    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.

    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.

    Under all conditions well-organized violence seems to him the shortest distance between two points.

    In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation. The old principle who does not work does not eat, has been replaced by a new one who does not obey shall not eat.


    I feel here that this time they have succeeded.

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

    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.

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

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

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

    Fascism is nothing but capitalist 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.

    Dialectical materialism is not of course an eternal and immutable philosophy. To think otherwise is to contradict the spirit of the dialectic. Further development of scientific thought will undoubtedly create a more profound doctrine into which dialectical materialism will enter merely as structural material.

    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.

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

    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

    The permanent revolution, in the sense which Marx attached to this concept, means a revolution which makes no compromise with any single form of class rule, which does not stop at the democratic stage, which goes over to socialist measures and to war against reaction from without that is, a revolution whose every successive stage is rooted in the preceding one and which can end only in complete liquidation.

    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.

    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.

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

    Let 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.

    If we had had more time for discussion we should probably have made a great many more mistakes.

    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.

    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.

    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.

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

    The dialectic is neither fiction or mysticism, but a science of the forms of our thinking insofar as it is not limited to the daily problems of life but attempts to arrive at an understanding of more complicated and drawn-out processes. The dialectic and formal logic bear a relationship similar to that between higher and lower mathematics.

    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.

    You may not be interested in strategy, but strategy is interested in you.

    The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.


    From being a patriotic myth, the Russian people have become an awful reality.

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

    The dialectic is not a magic master key for all questions. It does not replace concrete scientific analysis. But it directs this analysis along the correct road, securing it against sterile wanderings in the desert of subjectivism and scholasticism.


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