Lenin (Vladimir Ulyanov) Quotes

The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency.

Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.

I am a bad, wicked man, but I am practicing moral self-purification;

I don't eat meat any more, I now eat rice cutlets.

No amount of political freedom will satisfy the hungry masses.

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

Under socialism all will govern in turn and will soon become accustomed to no one governing.

The most important thing when ill, is to never lose heart.

A lie told often enough becomes truth.

Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country.

The history of all countries shows that the working class exclusively by its own effort is able to develop only trade-union consciousness.

Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle. The modern industrial proletariat does not belong to the category of such classes.

Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself.

If Socialism can only be realized when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred years.

While the State exists there can be no freedom; when there is freedom there will be no State.

It is true that liberty is precious. So precious that it must be rationed.

Our power does not know liberty or justice. It is established on the destruction of the individual will.

You cannot make a revolution in white gloves.

Whenever the cause of the people is entrusted to professors, it is lost.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

They capitalists will furnish credits which will serve us for the support of the Communist Party in their countries and, by supplying us materials and technical equipment which we lack, will restore our military industry necessary for our future attacks against our suppliers. To put it in other words, they will work on the preparation of their own suicide.

Give us the child for 8 years and it will be a Bolshevik forever.

Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.

Literature must become party literature.

Down with unpartisan litterateurs! Down with the superman of literature! Literature must become a part of the general cause of the proletariat.

To rely upon conviction, devotion, and other excellent spiritual qualities -- that is not to be taken seriously in politics.

When one makes a Revolution, one cannot mark time;

one must always go forward -- or go back. He who now talks about the freedom of the press goes backward, and halts our headlong course towards Socialism.

It is necessary to be able to withstand all this, to agree to any and every sacrifice, and evenif need beto resort to all sorts of stratagems, manoeuvres and illegal methods, to evasion and subterfuges in order to penetrate the trade unions, to remain in them, and to carry on Communist work in them at all costs.

You all know that even when women have full rights, they still remain fatally downtrodden because all housework is left to them. In most cases housework is the most unproductive, the most barbarous and the most arduous work a woman can do. It is exceptionally petty and does not include anything that would in any way promote the development of the woman.

All our lives we fought against exalting the individual, against the elevation of the single person, and long ago we were over and done with the business of a hero, and here it comes up again: the glorification of one personality. This is not good at all. I am just like everybody else.

Communists have become bureaucrats. If anything will destroy us, it is this.