Leon Trotsky

Events can neither be regarded as a series of adventures nor strung on the thread of a preconceived moral. They must obey their own laws.

It is unquestionably true that the need for art is not created by economic conditions. But neither is the need for food created by economics. On the contrary, the need for food and warmth creates economics.

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.

Our planet is being turned into a filthy and evil-smelling imperialist barrack.

The masses go into a revolution not with a prepared plan of social reconstruction, but with a sharp feeling that they cannot endure the old regime. Only the guiding layers of a class have a political program, and even this still requires the test of events and the approval of the masses.

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.

Life is short, but there is always time for courtesy.

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

For we put the power in the people.

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

The place of justice is a hallowed place.

If a man’s fortune does not fit him, it is like the shoe in the story; if too large it trips him up, if too small it pinches him.

It were endless to dispute upon everything that is disputable.

What is there that confers the noblest delight? What is that which swells a man’s breast with pride above that which any other experience can bring to him? Discovery! To know that you are walking where none others have walked; that you are beholding what human eye has not seen before; that you are breathing a virgin atmosphere. To give birth to an idea, to discover a great thought – an intellectual nugget, right under the dust of a field that many a brain-plough had gone over before. To find a new planet, to invent a new hinge, to find a way to make the lightning carry your messages. To be the first – that is the idea.

Gazing to the south, from the eastern peak, the moon appears through the raindrops.

Beauty surrounds us, but usually we need to be walking in a garden to know it.

Adam was but human-this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple’s sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.

Make a good use of the present.

Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is ajar.

Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession.

A man is usually more careful of his money than he is of his principles.