And you cannot have a socialist revolution commandeered from the top, ordered around by some omniscient leader or group of leaders.

Only under conditions of revolutionary crises do you have the highest level of self-organization; this is the Soviet type of organization, which is to say, workers' councils, people's councils, call them what you want, popular committees.

You can have relatively high levels of class consciousness with a lower level of class militancy than one would have expected.

You need a vanguard organization in order to overcome the dangerous potential brought about by the uneven development of class militancy and class consciousness.

The only conclusion you can draw from the real historical movement is that by and large, in day-to-day life, what Lenin called trade union consciousness dominates the working class. I would call it elementary class consciousness of the working class.

Marxism is always open, always critical, always self-critical.

Mistakes in themselves are unavoidable.

The conclusion you can draw from these characteristics is that you have an uneven development of class activity and an uneven development of class consciousness in the working class.

There is a process of social and of political differentiation going on in the real working class all the time.

Revolution is an instrument, like a party is an instrument.

For us, Marxism is always open because there are always new xperiences, there are always new facts, including facts about the past, which have to be incorporated in the corpus of scientific socialism.

Factions are a sign of illness in a party.

And you cannot have a socialist revolution commandeered from the top, ordered around by some omniscient leader or group of leaders.

The more workers you have in your organization, the better you are implanted in the working class, the more likely you are to come up with the concrete problems of the class.

There has been hardly a single year since 1917, and in a certain sense since 1905, without a revolution somewhere in the world in which the workers participated in a rather important way.

I do not believe in self-proclaimed parties.

There are no conditions in which we subordinate the interests of the class as a whole to the interests of any sect, any chapel, any separate organization.

Socialist democracy is not, a luxury and its need is not limited to the most advanced industrial countries.

You cannot make a socialist revolution without really trying.

Workers do not strike every day, they cannot do that the way they function in the capitalist economy. The way they have to live by selling their labor power makes that impossible.

Revolution is not a goal in itself.

On the contrary, history generally confirms that the more conscious and the better you are organized in vanguard organizations, the more constructively you operate in the mass organizations of the working class.

Otherwise we get off the track and we do not fulfil the historical role which we want to fulfil: to help the masses, the exploited and the oppressed of the world, build a classless society, a world socialist federation.

Furthermore, there is absolutely no contradiction between the separate organizations of revolutionary vanguard militants and their participation in the mass organizations of the working class.

Periodically, the workers do revolt against bourgeois society, not by a hundred, five hundred, or a thousand, but by the millions.

We do not believe that the Marxist program, which embodies the continuity of the experience of the actual class struggle and real revolutions of the last one hundred and fifty years, is a definitely closed book.

I'm glad I'm not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know if someone's tape recording what you say.

Reason and judgment are the qualities of a leader.

The most important quality in a leader is that of being acknowledged as such. All leaders whose fitness is questioned are clearly lacking in force.

Show me a poorly uniformed troop and I'll show you a poorly uniformed leader.

I was a gang leader. Although, it was a gang for defensive purposes. It was not a gang to sell drugs.

But let's be clear. We're talking about a country where there's no opposition. As leader he can ignore Parliament and - sorry that's Tony Blair isn't it? Um, so he doesn't even have to ask the country before he goes to war - sorry that's still Tony Blair.

I am not the kind of leader who pontificates about what should be done - I don't operate on scenarios, and I am not a prophet.

Tony Blair has turned his back on the principles he claimed he believed in before he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with George W. Bush. He was an entirely different kind of leader.

Somebody has to take responsibility for being a leader.

Obama likes to quote great men but will never be a great man himself. I can't stand it when our leader goes around apologizing for who we are.

The 'transition' involves the transfer of power from one president to another. In recent times, the incoming President has designated a Director of the Transition, a team leader, to oversee and administer the orderly transfer of power.

Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.

Today America lost a great elder statesman, a committed public servant, and leader of the Senate. And today I lost a treasured friend. Ted Kennedy was an iconic, larger than life United States senator whose influence cannot be overstated. Many have come before, and many will come after, but Ted Kennedy's name will always be remembered as someone who lived and breathed the United States Senate and the work completed within its chamber.

The fountain of youth with the youthful young musician is one meaning, and the fountain of youth with the youthful energy of the leader is another meaning.

When you have a clearly open homosexual scout leader, the scouts are going to talk about it. And they're not there to learn about that. They're there to learn about what it means to be loyal and trustworthy and thrifty.

I think it's good to have competition. Now we have a third country that can launch astronauts, so it's good for all of us. It makes us a little bit more competitive and wanting to be the leader.

People, like sheep, tend to follow a leader - occasionally in the right direction.

I was writing a chapter of Beautiful Evidence on the subject of the sculptural pedestal, which led to my thinking about what's up on the pedestal - the great leader.

Those who cannot think or take responsibility for themselves need, and clamor for, a leader.

We would very much like to see Iran take a position as a responsible leader that doesn't intimidate or threaten or scare its neighbors and others. But the choice is really up to Iran and we're going to keep working to try to come out with the right decision.

The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective.

What is the primary purpose of a political leader? To build a majority. If voters care about parking lots, then talk about parking lots.

I hope that we can continue this cooperation on other critical issues related to America's future technological competitiveness. We must work together to encourage the creative talents that have made our country the world leader in technology.