Leon Trotsky

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

If one cannot get along without a mirror, even in shaving oneself, how can one reconstruct oneself or one’s life, without seeing oneself in the mirror of literature?

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

Revolutions are always verbose.

I was not prepared to play the role of singer in the camp of the warriors

Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that can happen to a man.

The culture and ideology fostered in this globalization process relate largely to “lifestyle” themes and goods and their acquisition; and they tend to weaken any sense of community helpful to civic life.

It is necessary sometimes to take one step backward to take two steps forward.

I have a great relationship with African Americans, as you possibly have heard. I just have great respect for them. And they like me. I like them.

If the Democrats could get their act together, overcoming the schism between the donor-oriented New Democrat Party management and the increasingly activist and social democratic base, they would have a decent chance to take over Congress.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, with the ending of the Warsaw Pact mutual defence strategy, was the obvious time for Nato to have been disbanded.

Bureaucrats write memoranda both because they appear to be busy when they are writing and because the memos, once written, immediately become proof that they were busy.

President Reagan put it best: Welfare’s purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.

Our great African-American President hasn’t exactly had a positive impact on the thugs who are so happily and openly destroying Baltimore.

Popularity may be united with hostility to the rights of the people, and the secret slave of tyranny may be the professed lover of freedom.

His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular.

If he gave an assignment, he didn’t really care how it was done or who did it or what problems they had. It just had to get done, and that was that.

Because when you have the nuclear codes at your fingertips and the military in your command, you can’t make snap decisions. You can’t have a thin skin or a tendency to lash out. You need to be steady and measured and well-informed.

We don’t let them have ideas. Why would we let them have guns?

Stop talking about how you care about people. Show me something. Show me a policy. Show me a policy where you take responsibility.

In the Soviet Union, it’s takes more courage to retreat than advance.