Joseph Stalin

Undoubtedly, our path is not of the easiest; but, just as undoubtedly, we are not to be frightened by difficulties. Paraphrasing from the well-known words of Luther, Russia might say: ‘Here I stand on the frontier between the old, capitalist world and the new, socialist world. Here on this frontier I unite the efforts of the proletarians of the West and of the peasantry of the East in order to shatter the old world. May the god of history be my aid!

The Pope! How many divisions has he got?

In war I would deal with the Devil and his grandmother

Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don’t let our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?

Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas.

We Marxists believe that revolution will occur in other countries, as well. But it will occur at a time when it will be considered possible or necessary by revolutionaries of those countries.

The prevailing pattern is one of indignant outrage over enemy crimes with much self-congratulatory appeal to high principle, combined with a remarkable ability “not to see” in the case of crimes for which we bear responsibility.

[on Les Paul guitars] It’s the construction and sound of it. With this material, the wood and neck construction and scale length really yields a different sound all together, and I just gravitate towards that. I pretty much get everything I want with it, so I’m very satisfied.

Laws are like sausages. It’s better not to see them being made.

Edward Bernays’ first great achievement, that sort of made a star out of him, was a public relations campaign trying to get women to smoke. So he had models walking down Fifth Avenue smoking cigarettes and showing how it makes you beautiful and slim.

I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.

If you seek the removal of freedoms from an opponent simply on the grounds that they have offended you, you have crossed a line to stand alongside tyrants who imprison, torture and kill on exactly the same justifications.

When I see people go at the President, why not try love, for one person to stand up against all odds and just hug somebody the way that Alice Johnson hugged her family when she got out of jail?.

You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.

For Russia, there is not and there may not be another political option but democracy. However, Russian democracy is… not at all the realization of standards imposed on us from outside.

If you do politics the right way, I believe, you can actually make people’s lives better. And integrity is the minimum ante to get into the game.

It is beyond imagining in responsible circles that we might have some culpability for mass slaughter and destruction, or owe some debt to the millions of maimed and orphaned, or to the peasants who still die from exploding ordnance left from the U.S. assault…

It’s better to be hanged for loyalty than be rewarded for betrayal.

I hate diversity workshops. Real change comes from having enough comfort to be really honest and say something very uncomfortable.

[on Bill and Hillary Clinton] Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it’s troubling.

We don’t use the term “working class” here because it’s a taboo term. You’re supposed to say “middle class,” because it helps diminish the understanding that there’s a class war going on.