One of the most surprising things in life is the sudden realization that one has become old

As for us, we were never concerned with the Kantian-priestly and vegetarian-Quaker prattle about the "sacredness of human life." We were revolutionaries in opposition, and have remained revolutionaries in power. To make the individual sacred we must destroy the social order which crucifies him. And this problem can only be solved by blood and iron.

‎The party that leans upon the workers but serves the bourgeoisie, in the period of the greatest sharpening of the class struggle, cannot but sense the smells wafted from the waiting grave.

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

The Soviet Union needs thinking and critical friends, such as are capable not only of singing hymns in the hours of success, but of not shrinking in the hour of defeat and danger.

If we close our eyes to the dark sides of the workers' State which we have helped to create, we shall never reach socialism.

It is therefore not true that the mere existence of the Soviet Union is capable of assuring the victory of the revolution in other countries.