Self-criticism, cruel, unsparing criticism that goes to the very root of the evil, is life and breath for the proletarian movement.
What presents itself to us as bourgeois legality is nothing but the violence of the ruling class, a violence raised to an obligatory norm from the outset.
Women’s freedom is the sign of social freedom.
I want to affect people like a clap of thunder, to inflame their minds with the breadth of my vision, the strength of my conviction and the power of my expression.
I want to burden the conscience of the affluent with all the suffering and all the hidden, bitter tears.
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. Freedom is always the freedom of the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of justice, but because all that is instructive, wholesome and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when ‘freedom’ becomes a special privilege.
And in the darkness I smile at life, as if I were the possessor of charm which would enable me to transform all that is evil and tragical into serenity and happiness. But when I search my mind for the cause of this joy, I find there is no cause, and can only laugh at myself.
Democracy is indispensable to the working class, because only through the exercise of its democratic rights, in the struggle for democracy, can the proletariat become aware of its class interests and its historic task.
Don’t forget, as busy as you may be, to quickly raise your head and cast a glance at those great silver clouds and that silent blue ocean in which they are swimming... take notice of the resplendence and glory that overlie this day... because this day will never, ever come again! This day is a gift to you like a rose in full bloom, lying at your feet, waiting for you to pick it up and press it to your lips.
Clearly, not uncritical apologetics but penetrating and thoughtful criticism is alone capable of bringing out the treasures of experiences and teachings.
There was no doubt for Marx and Engels about the necessity of having the proletariat conquer political power. It is left to Bernstein to consider the poultry-yard of bourgeois Parliamentarism as the organ by which we are to realize the most formidable social transformation of history, the passage from capitalist society to Socialism.
Take notice of the resplendence and glory that overlie this day, because this day will never, ever come again! This day is a gift to you like a rose in full bloom, lying at your feet, waiting for you to pick it up and put it to your lips.
Freiheit, ist immer die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden.
Let us speak plainly. Historically, the errors committed by a truly revolutionary movement are infinitely more fruitful than the infallibility of the cleverest Central Committee.
We have to take everything as it comes and to find beauty in everything. That’s what I manage to do.
People for the most part pass by the loveliest things in life without paying attention.
Fourier’s scheme of changing, by means of phalansteries, the water of all the seas into tasty lemonade was surely a phantastic idea. But Bernstein, proposing to change the sea of capitalist bitterness into a sea of socialist sweetness, by progressively pouring into it bottles of social reformist lemonade, presents an idea that is merely more insipid but no less phantastic.
If I feel by intuition that he doesn’t love me anymore, I will immediately fly away like a stricken bird.
The solemn stillness of the morning hour lay over the pavement; above in the window panes the early gold of the young sun glistened, and high above swam little roseate clouds which then dissolved into the grey city sky. At that time, as a child, I firmly believed that “life”, “real” life, was somewhere far away, beyond the roofs. Since then I have been travelling after it. But it is still hidden away behind the roofs somewhere...
As long as theoretic knowledge remains the privilege of a handful of “academicians” in the Party, the latter will face the danger of going astray.
The modern proletarian class doesn’t carry out its struggle according to a plan set out in some book or theory; the modern workers’ struggle is a part of history, a part of social progress, and in the middle of history, in the middle of progress, in the middle of the fight, we learn how we must fight...