It is only in revolutionary struggle against the capitalists of every country, and only in union with the working women and men of the whole world, that we will achieve a new and brighter future-the socialist brotherhood of the workers. -- Alexandra Kollontai, Our Tasks (1917)

Yes, we must fight, struggle, be ready for defeats and disappointments, but once we have consciously set our feet on the right road, with a clear vision of the task ahead, nothing can daunt us and all causes for pessimism disappear. -- M.N. Roy, On Non-Violence and the Masses (1923)

Socialists cannot achieve their great aim without fighting against all oppression of nations. -- Lenin, Socialism and War (1915)

Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. -- Marx, Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852)

It is at moments of need that one learns who one's friends are. Defeated armies learn their lesson. -- Lenin, Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)

Every step of real movement is more important than a dozen programmes. -- Karl Marx, Letter to Bracke (In Brunswick) (1875)

A basic condition for the necessary expansion of political agitation is the organisation of comprehensive political exposure. -- Lenin, What Is To Be Done?, "Political Exposures And 'Training In Revolutionary Activity'" (1904)

Every step of real movement is more important than a dozen programmes. -- Marx, Letter to Bracke (1875)

War cannot be abolished unless classes are abolished and Socialism is created. -- Lenin, Socialism and War (1915)

Our biggest mistake was that we did not plant the stake in the heart of the vampire: finance. -- Louise Michelle

In a higher phase of communist society, ... - only then then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs! -- Marx, Critique of the Gotha Program (1875)

The revolution made progress, not by its immediate tragicomic achievements but by the creation of a powerful, united counter-revolution, an opponent in combat with whom the party of overthrow ripened into a really revolutionary party. -- Marx, Class Struggle in France (1850)

A standing army and police are the chief instruments of state power. -- Lenin, State and Revolution (1917)

Workers in the bourgeois countries must fight for equal rights for men and women. -- Nadezhda K. Krupskaya, Preface to The Emancipation of Women in Writings of V.I. Lenin (1933)

Just as the operation of the laws of physiology yields different results in a growing than in a dying organism, so the laws of Marxist economy assert themselves differently in a developing and disintegrating capitalism. -- Trotsky, Marxism in Our Time (1939)

Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party. -- "Problems of War and Strategy" (November 6, 1938), Mao Zedong Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 224.

We should not say that one man's hour is worth another man's hour, but rather that one man during an hour is worth just as much as another man during an hour. Time is everything, man is nothing: he is at the most time's carcass. -- Karl Marx

The development of civilization and industry in general has always shown itself so active in the destruction of forests that everything that has been done for their conservation and production is completely insignificant in comparison. -- Karl Marx

We Communists are like seeds and the people are like the soil. Wherever we go, we must unite with the people, take root and blossom among them. -- "On the Chungking Negotiations" (October 17, 1945), Mao Zedong Selected Works, Vol. IV, p. 58.

The writer must earn money in order to be able to live and to write, but he must by no means live and write for the purpose of making money. -- Karl Marx

If the writer of these lines has succeeded in providing some material for clarifying these problems, he may regard his labours as not having been fruitless. -- Lenin, The Development of Capitaism in Russia, The "The Mission of Capitalism" (1899)

Human anatomy contains a key to the anatomy of the ape. -- Marx, The Grundrisse (1857)

To work, everybody to work, the cause of the world socialist revolution must and will triumph. -- VI Lenin, Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power? (1917)

Greek philosophy seems to have met with something with which a good tragedy is not supposed to meet, namely, a dull ending. -- Marx, Doctoral Thesis, Chapter 1 (1841)

A party is the vanguard of a class, and its duty is to lead the masses and not merely to reflect the average political level of the masses. -- Lenin, Speech On The Agrarian Question November 14 (1917)

When the masses are digesting a new and exceptionally rich experience of direct revolutionary struggle, the theoretical struggle for a revolutionary outlook, i.e., for revolutionary Marxism, becomes the watchword of the day. -- Lenin, Two Letters (1908)

It is the duty of the revolution to put an end to compromise, and to put an end to compromise means taking the path of socialist revolution. -- Lenin, Speech On The Agrarian Question November 14 (1917)

The price or money-form of commodities is, like their form of value generally, a form quite distinct from their palpable bodily form; it is, therefore, a purely ideal or mental form -- Marx, Capital, Volume I, Chapter 3 (1867)

Poverty, the existence of the poor, was the first cause of riches. -- Peter Kropotkin

The masses are the real heroes, while we ourselves are often childish and ignorant, and without this understanding, it is impossible to acquire even the most rudimentary knowledge. -- "Preface and Postscript to Rural Surveys" (March and April 1941), Mao Zedong Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 12.

The bureaucracy is a circle from which no one can escape. Its hierarchy is a hierarchy of knowledge. -- Marx, Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1843)

Struggle so that all may live this rich, overflowing life. And be sure that in this struggle you will find a joy greater than anything else can give. -- Peter Kropotkin

Modern society, which, soon after its birth, pulled Plutus by the hair of his head from the bowels of the earth, greets gold as its Holy Grail, as the glittering incarnation of the very principle of its own life. -- Marx, Capital, Volume I, Chapter 3 (1867)

Written over 100 years ago, the lesson is still being learned to this day. It is more relevant today than it was when it was originally written. Read for free: www.marxists.org/archive/leni...

Art must make its own way and by its own means. The Marxian methods are not the same as the artistic. The party leads the proletariat but not the historic processes of history. -- Trotsky, Communist Policy Toward Art (1923)

In all mass movements we must make a basic investigation and analysis of the number of active supporters, opponents and neutrals and must not decide problems subjectively and without basis. -- "Methods of Work of Party Committees" (March 13, 1949), Mao Zedong Selected Works, Vol. IV, p. 380.

By destroying small-scale production, capital leads to an increase in productivity of labour and to the creation of a monopoly position for the associations of big capitalists. -- Lenin, The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism (1913)

The country that is more developed industrially only shows, to the less developed, the image of its own future. -- Karl Marx

The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it. -- Marx, Theses On Feuerbach: Thesis 11 (1845)

If the leaders seek only to preserve themselves, that is what they become; preserves, dried preserves. -- Trotsky, Some Questions on American Problems (1940)

On the level plain, simple mounds look like hills; and the imbecile flatness of the present bourgeoisie is to be measured by the altitude of its great intellects.. -- Marx, Capital, Volume I, Chapter 16 (1867)

I am in general trying to read Hegel materialistically: Hegel is materialism which has been stood on its head (according to Engels) - that is to say, I cast aside for the most part God, the Absolute, the Pure Idea, etc. -- Lenin, Conspectus of Hegel's Logic (1914)

Experience praises the most happy the one who made the most people happy. -- Karl Marx

Where there is authority, there is no freedom. -- Peter Kropotkin

Thousands upon thousands of martyrs have heroically laid down their lives for the people; let us hold their banner high and march ahead along the path crimson with their blood! -- "On Coalition Government" (April 24, 1945), Mao Zedong Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 318.

Convert the imperialist war into civil war. -- Lenin, Socialism and War (1915)

The working class cannot play its world-revolutionary role unless it wages a ruthless struggle against this renegacy. spinelessness, subservience to opportunism and unexampled vulgarization of the theories of Marxism. -- Lenin, Socialism and War (1915)

Communists should set an example in study; at all times they should be pupils of the masses as well as their teachers. -- "The Role of the Chinese Communist Party in the National War" (October 1938), Mao Zedong Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 198.

Our object is the economic freedom of the producing classes; this ultimate goal will be attained after a long and bitter struggle; therefore, our primary task is to organize the masses and lead them in the struggle for economic freedom. -- M N Roy, On Non-Violence and the Masses (1923)