Before a revolution happens, it is perceived as impossible; after it happens, it is seen as having been inevitable.
Only to the rude ear of one who is quite indifferent does the song of a bird seem always the same.
Bourgeois class domination is undoubtedly an historical necessity, but, so too, the rising of the working class against it. Capital is an historical necessity, but, so too, its grave digger, the socialist proletariat.
We will be victorious if we have not forgotten how to learn.
Capitalism, as a result of its own inner contradictions, moves toward a point when it will be unbalanced, when it will simply become impossible.
Tomorrow the revolution will already ‘raise itself with a rattle’ and announce with fanfare, to your terror: I was, I am, I will be!
The victory of socialism will not descend like fate from heaven.
Freedom is always the freedom of dissenters.
The high stage of world-industrial development in capitalistic production finds expression in the extraordinary technical development and destructiveness of the instruments of war...
History is the only true teacher, the revolution the best school for the proletariat.
Life is singing also in the sand crunching under the slow and heavy steps of the guards, when we know how to listen to it.
Freedom for supporters of the government only, for members of one party only no matter how big its membership may be is no freedom at all. Freedom is always freedom for the man who thinks differently.
The clergy, no less than the capitalist class, lives on the backs of the people, profits from the degradation, the ignorance and the oppression of the people.
We stand todaybefore the awful proposition: either the triumph of imperialism and the destruction of all culture, and, as in ancient Rome, depopulation, desolation, degeneration, a vast cemetery; or, the victory of socialism.
With the true artist, the social formula that he recommends is a matter of secondary importance; the source of his art, its animating spirit, is decisive.
The more that social democracy develops, grows, and becomes stronger, the more the enlightened masses of workers will take their own destinies, the leadership of their movement, and the determination of its direction into their own hands.
Freedom only for the members of the government, only for the members of the Party – though they are quite numerous – is no freedom at all.
Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism.
Only through the conscious action of the working masses in city and country can it be brought to life, only through the people’s highest intellectual maturity and inexhaustible idealism can it be brought safely through all storms and find its way to port.
Self-criticism, cruel, unsparing criticism that goes to the very root of the evil, is life and breath for the proletarian movement.
Tomorrow the revolution will ‘rise up again, clashing its weapons,’ and to your horror it will proclaim with trumpets blazing: I was, I am, I shall be!