Leon Trotsky

Between his consciousness and events stood always that impenetrable medium – indifference.

…capitalism does live by crises and booms, just as a human being lives by inhaling and exhaling.

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

Tell me anyway–Maybe I can find the truth by comparing the lies.

Against my protests a mausoleum was built on the Red Square, a monument unbecoming and offensive to the revolutionary consciousness.

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

I never resist temptation, because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me.

Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence.

Be the change you want to see in the world.

Other men are lenses through which we read our own minds. Each man seeks those of different quality from his own, and such as are good of their kind; that is, he seeks other men, and the rest.

He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.

Remember where you came from.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.

They are decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.

In the vain laughter of folly wisdom hears half its applause.

Manners are the happy ways of doing things; each one a stroke of genius or of love, now repeated and hardened into usage, they form at last a rich varnish, with which the routine of life is washed, and its details adorned. If they are superficial, so are the dew-drops which give such a depth to the morning meadows.

My own experience and development deepen everyday my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy.

When you’re first figuring yourself out, you care so much about what people think of you.

It is easier to stay out than get out.

You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

The only living works are those which have drained much of the author’s own life into them.