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There is a limit to the application of democratic methods. You can inquire of all the passengers as to what type of car they like to ride in, but it is impossible to question them as to whether to apply the brakes when the train is at full speed and accident threatens.

Leon Trotsky
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There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war. Everything depends on circumstances.
Leon Trotsky
Ideas that enter the mind under fire remain there securely and for ever.
Leon Trotsky
Life is not an easy matter... You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.
Leon Trotsky
From being a patriotic myth, the Russian people have become an awful reality.
Leon Trotsky
In a serious struggle there is no worse cruelty than to be magnanimous at an inopportune time.
Leon Trotsky
If we had had more time for discussion we should probably have made a great many more mistakes.
Leon Trotsky
Let a man find himself, in distinction from others, on top of two wheels with a chain - at least in a poor country like Russia - and his vanity begins to swell out like his tires. In America it takes an automobile to produce this effect.
Leon Trotsky
The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.
Leon Trotsky
There is a limit to the application of democratic methods. You can inquire of all the passengers as to what type of car they like to ride in, but it is impossible to question them as to whether to apply the brakes when the train is at full speed and accident threatens.
Leon Trotsky
Technique is noticed most markedly in the case of those who have not mastered it.
Leon Trotsky
Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely. But one must know the limitations of force; one must know when to blend force with a maneuver, a blow with an agreement.
Leon Trotsky
You may not be interested in strategy, but strategy is interested in you.
Leon Trotsky
Learning carries within itself certain dangers because out of necessity one has to learn from one's enemies.
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.
Leon Trotsky
Old age is the most unexpected of all things that happen to a man.
Leon Trotsky
Insurrection is an art, and like all arts has its own laws.
Leon Trotsky
Revolutions are always verbose.
Leon Trotsky
Fascism is nothing but capitalist reaction.
Leon Trotsky
If we had more time for discussion we should probably have made a great many more mistakes.
Leon Trotsky
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.
Leon Trotsky
Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravity.
Leon Trotsky
The historic ascent of humanity, taken as a whole, may be summarized as a succession of victories of consciousness over blind forces - in nature, in society, in man himself.
Leon Trotsky
Everyone has the right to be stupid on occasion, but Comrade Macdonald abuses the privilege.
Leon Trotsky
Art is not a mirror to hold up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it.
Leon Trotsky
Communism needs democracy like the human body needs oxygen.
Leon Trotsky
The concrete is a combination of abstractions not an arbitrary or subjective combination but one that corresponds to the laws of the movement of a given phenomenon.
Leon Trotsky
Abusive language and swearing are a legacy of slavery humiliation and disrespect for human dignity ones own and that of other people.
Leon Trotsky
The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end
Leon Trotsky
The creative union of the conscious with the unconscious is what one usually calls 'inspiration.'
Leon Trotsky
Abusive language and swearing are a legacy of slavery, humiliation, and disrespect for human dignity, one's own and that of other people.
Leon Trotsky
The fundamental flaw of vulgar thought lies in the fact that it wishes to content itself with motionless imprints of a reality which consists of eternal motion.
Leon Trotsky
When one runs with the wolves, one must howl with the pack.
Leon Trotsky
Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.
Mark Twain
I don't like to hurt people, I really don't like it at all. But in order to get a red light at the intersection, you sometimes have to have an accident.
Jack Anderson
Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.
Paul J. Meyer
It was just an accident; I was never going to come out here.
Dick Van Patten
So that is how I ended up with those two titles, I like Accidentally on Purpose better - it is how we work in our trade - is it really an accident, or is there a thread of destiny in there? That was the intention, I am not sure I found out.
Michael York
Yes, of course that's true but you know, the irony of all that is that before the accident, I'd pretty much lost interest in playing drums.
Rick Allen
Because we are in a war situation, this can sometimes be dangerous work. But guys like A.D. Flowers and his technicians just take it in stride and get on with the job. In four years, we've never had a serious accident or injury working with all the explosions.
Vic Morrow
When I was 21, I got into a motorcycle accident while traveling in Europe and I had to lie around a lot in the aftermath, which was really the first time in my life that I became really focused and inspired to write.
Chantal Kreviazuk
None of the modes by which a magistrate is appointed, popular election, the accident of the lot, or the accident of birth, affords, as far as we can perceive, much security for his being wiser than any of his neighbours.
Thomas Babington
Before my accident I was a little too... selfish and self-absorbed and for me, to now be at the place where I can kinda give back and inspire people. I'm blessed. I'm really blessed.
Rick Allen
It is no accident that I made Cartoon Town a simple little village - in many ways it mirrored my home town. And, yes, many of my puppet characters took on some of the more eccentric characteristics of people I knew there.
William Jackson
It's no accident many accuse me of conducting public affairs with my heart instead of my head. Well, what if I do? Those who don't know how to weep with their whole heart don't know how to laugh either.
Golda Meir
Well, I started conducting kind of by accident. I wanted to give myself a special birthday present for my fortieth birthday, and I was living in San Francisco at the time and I started attending some of the concerts and then simply dropping hints.
Bobby McFerrin
After the accident Black Sheep was pretty much at an end.
Lou Gramm
It's no accident that Tony Hopkins is a wonderful film actor.
Shirley Knight
Scholarship except by accident is never the measure of a person's power.
J. G. Holland