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.

Revolutions are always verbose.

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.

Abusive language and swearing are a legacy of slavery, humiliation, and disrespect for human dignity, one’s own and that of other people.

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

Let us not forget that revolutions are accomplished through people, although they be nameless. Materialism does not ignore the feeling, thinking, and acting man, but explains him.

You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.

The first wealth is health.

Already know you that which you need.

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.

Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party.

Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.

The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.

Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.

Oaths are but words, and words are but wind.

But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?

Meeting Franklin Roosevelt was like opening your first bottle of champagne; knowing him was like drinking it.

I am admonished in many ways that time is pushing me inexorably along. I am approaching the threshold of age; in 1977 I shall be 142. This is no time to be flitting about the earth. I must cease from the activities proper to youth and begin to take on the dignities and gravities and inertia proper to that season of honorable senility which is on its way.

When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.

One wanders to the left, another to the right. Both are equally in error, but, are seduced by different delusions.

Men are seldom more commonplace than on supreme occasions.