Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself.
Capitalists are no more capable of self-sacrifice than a man is capable of lifting himself up by his own bootstraps.
Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.
Under socialism all will govern in turn and will soon become accustomed to no one governing.
Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country.
Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle. The modern industrial proletariat does not belong to the category of such classes.
It is true that liberty is precious. So precious that it must be rationed.
Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.
When one makes a Revolution, one cannot mark time; one must always go forward -- or go back. He who now talks about the freedom of the press goes backward, and halts our headlong course towards Socialism.
Any cook should be able to run the country.
All our lives we fought against exalting the individual, against the elevation of the single person, and long ago we were over and done with the business of a hero, and here it comes up again: the glorification of one personality. This is not good at all. I am just like everybody else.
You all know that even when women have full rights, they still remain fatally downtrodden because all housework is left to them. In most cases housework is the most unproductive, the most barbarous and the most arduous work a woman can do. It is exceptionally petty and does not include anything that would in any way promote the development of the woman.
The most important thing when ill, is to never lose heart.
Whenever the cause of the people is entrusted to professors, it is lost.
Literature must become party literature. Down with unpartisan litterateurs! Down with the superman of literature! Literature must become a part of the general cause of the proletariat.
No amount of political freedom will satisfy the hungry masses.
To rely upon conviction, devotion, and other excellent spiritual qualities -- that is not to be taken seriously in politics.
You cannot make a revolution in white gloves.
I am a bad, wicked man, but I am practicing moral self-purification; I don't eat meat any more, I now eat rice cutlets.
If Socialism can only be realized when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred years.
While the State exists there can be no freedom; when there is freedom there will be no State.
The history of all countries shows that the working class exclusively by its own effort is able to develop only trade-union consciousness.