All extremes are bad. All that is good and useful, if carried to extremes, may become-and beyond a certain limit is bound to become-bad and injurious.

Democracy is indispensable to socialism.

Give me just one generation of youth, and I'll transform the whole world.

We are not utopians, we do not “dream” of dispensing at once with all administration, with all subordination. These anarchist dreams, based upon incomprehension of the tasks of the proletarian dictatorship, are totally alien to Marxism, and, as a matter of fact, serve only to postpone the socialist revolution until people are different. No, we want the socialist revolution with people as they are now, with people who cannot dispense with subordination, control, and "foremen and accountants".

The soundest strategy in war is to postpone operations until the moral disintegration of the enemy renders the delivery of the mortal blow both possible and easy.

Capitalists are no more capable of self-sacrifice than a man is capable of lifting himself up by his own bootstraps.

We must pursue the removal of church property by any means necessary in order to secure for ourselves a fund of several hundred million gold rubles.