Leon Trotsky

England is nothing but the last ward of the European madhouse, and quite possibly it will prove to be the ward for particularly violent cases.

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?

The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves.

The United States is not only the strongest, but also the most terrified country.

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

Everyone has the right to be stupid on occasion, but Comrade Macdonald abuses the privilege.

Men are apt to mistake the strength of their feeling for the strength of their argument. The heated mind resents the chill touch and relentless scrutiny of logic.

Nothing is too high for the daring of mortals: we storm heaven itself in our folly.

Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to the country and to mankind is to bring up a family.

My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.

Always seeking acceptance from others, searching for belonging. Striving for individuality, yet wanting to fit in. Never understanding that acceptance for one’s own individuality make all of that redundant.

It isn’t making mistakes that’s critical; it’s correcting them and getting on with the principal task.

History is only the register of crimes and misfortunes.

In childhood be modest, in youth temperate, in adulthood just, and in old age prudent.

We seem but to linger in manhood to tell the dreams of our childhood, and they vanish out of memory ere we learn the language.

All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened.

We don’t want people to have expectations of us, but then we have expectations of everybody else.

Our deeds still travel with us from afar, and what we have been makes us what we are.

Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins.

Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts – a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments.

Why do you hasten to remove anything which hurts your eye, while if something affects your soul you postpone the cure until next year?