Revolutionary Quotes

[ComradeMan]

A lot of people here use quotes on their signature. Quotes, especially the witty and short "off the cuff" type can often say a lot more than a whole paragrahp of analysis and prose.

What are your favourite quotes? Let's create a bank of quotes (pertinent):-


Karl Marx to Lafargue: "Ce qu’il y a de certain c’est que moi, je ne suis pas Marxiste" : "If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist"

The hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill society with the industrial capitalist.
Marx, Poverty of Philosophy (1847)

History does nothing, it ‘possesses no immense wealth’, it ‘wages no battles’. It is man, real, living man who does all that, who possesses and fights; ‘history’ is not, as it were, a person apart, using man as a means to achieve its own aims; history is nothing but the activity of man pursuing his aims..
Marx, The Holy Family, Chapter 6 (1846)


The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.
Marx, Theses On Feuerbach: Thesis 11 (1845)


At the risk of sounding ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by feelings of love.
Che Guevara

I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves.
Che Guevara

Cruel leaders are replaced only to have new leaders turn cruel!
Che Guevara

To accomplish much you must first lose everything.
Che Guevara

I never saw a contradiction between the ideas that sustain me and the ideas of that symbol, of that extraordinary figure, Jesus Christ.
Fidel Castro

They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?
Fidel Castro

Every action of ours is passed on to others according to its value, of good or evil, it passes from father to son, from one generation to the next, in a perpetual movement.Antonio Gramsci

The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned.Antonio Gramsci

The people which once bestowed imperium, fasces, legions, everything, now foregoes such activities and has but two passionate desires: bread and circus games.
Juvenal X.78-81

No one is so foolish as to choose war over peace. In peace sons bury their fathers, in war fathers bury their sons.
Croesus in Herodotus Book 1.87.1.4

A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise.
Niccolò Machiavelli

A son can bear with equanimity the loss of his father, but the loss of his inheritance may drive him to despair.
Niccolò Machiavelli

Hence it comes about that all armed Prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed Prophets have been destroyed.
Niccolò Machiavelli

Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions.
Niccolò Machiavelli

The one who adapts his policy to the times prospers, and likewise that the one whose policy clashes with the demands of the times does not.
Niccolò Machiavelli

What one Christian does is his own responsibility, what one Jew does is thrown back at all Jews.
Anne Frank

[Havet]

I like my quote. Bud has many meaningful sentences; stick around and he might give you one.

[ComradeMan]

Come on Havet- for FFS- why not post some quotes you like without being facetious.;)

[Ele'ill]

Havet is correct, a lot of users on this forum can come up with some very insightful quotes. ;)


I like Ed Abbey.

[Property Is Robbery]

"If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." -Emma Goldman

"Freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice, Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality." - Mikhail Bakunin

"The law is an adroit mixture of customs that are beneficial to society, and could be followed even if no law existed, and others that are of advantage to a ruling minority, but harmful to the masses of men, and can be enforced on them only by terror."-Peter Kropotkin

"We anarchists do not want to emancipate the people; we want the people to emancipate themselves." - Errico Malatesta

"Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us." - Leo Tolstoy

"Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it." -Noam Chomsky

"God himself has no right to be a tyrant." -William Godwin

[ComradeMan]

"Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it." -Noam Chomsky

I like that one- where is it from exactly?

[Ele'ill]

"Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it." -Noam Chomsky

I like that one- where is it from exactly?


I think it's from 'Power and Terror'

[LeftSideDown]

"The art of truly great popular leaders in all ages has consisted chiefly in not distracting the attention of the people, but concentrating always on a single adversary.... It is part of a great leader's genius to make even widely separated adversaries appear as if they belonged to one category, because... the recognition of various enemies all too easily marks the beginning of doubt of one's own rightness."

Props to anyone who can tell me who wrote this without looking it up...

Also, does anyone think maybe Marx was doing something like this when he talked about the "Enemy" capitalists?

[Bud Struggle]

I'll keep my guns, my freedom and my money--you can keep the Change.

[Bud Struggle]

Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff.
Frank Zappa

In Communism, inequality comes from placing mediocrity on a level with excellence.
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Communism is like one big phone company.
Lenny Bruce

Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy.
Mao Tse-Tung

Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies.
H. L. Mencken

For us in Russia communism is a dead dog. For many people in the West, it is still a living lion. Alexander Solzehnitsyn

It was patriotism, not communism, that inspired me.
Ho Chi Minh

Let's not talk about Communism. Communism was just and idea, just pie in the sky.
Boris Yeltsin

Socialism is simply Communism for people without the testosterone to man the barricades.
Gary North

The communism of Marx seeks a strong state centralization, and where this exists, there the parasitic Jewish nation - which speculates upon the labor of people - will always find the means for its existence.
Mikhail Bakunin

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.
John Kenneth Galbraith

When I die, my only wish is that Cambodia remain Cambodia and belong to the West. It is over for communism, and I want to stress that.
Pol Pot

[red cat]

Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy.
Mao Tse-Tung




Which of Mao's works is this from ?

[Bud Struggle]

Which of Mao's works is this from ?

I got this all off of the Internet--sorry I don't know.

[red cat]

I got this all off of the Internet--sorry I don't know.

Never mind, it is a common feature of most Mao and Stalin quotes that anti-communists use; you will find only the quotes, never any work containing them.

[#FF0000]

yeah bud you are not a troll or anything.

EDIT: See my sig for the baller Rev. quote. Source is some Quaker who owned hard.

[ComradeMan]

^^^^^^No- if those quotes of Bud's are true, which I doubt not, then he is entitled to post them and we have to be objective and analyse them in their context.

I might not like what he says, but I will defend his right to say it.

[red cat]

^^^^^^No- if those quotes of Bud's are true, which I doubt not, then he is entitled to post them and we have to be objective and analyse them in their context.

I might not like what he says, but I will defend his right to say it.

The context is missing when the relevant works cannot be found anywhere. This leads me to suspect that these Mao or Stalin quotes are certainly nothing more than bourgeois inventions.

[Ele'ill]

Yeah bud, your post here is trollish but it fits the thread as what's being asking for are short statements with no facts backing them up - quotations- let's maybe make sure those type of responses stay in this thread.

“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.” Ed Abbey

“The tragedy of modern war is that the young men die fighting each other - instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals.” Ed Abbey


“Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit” Ed Abbey




“I bet the main reason the police keep people away from a plane crash is they don't want anybody walking in and lying down in the crash stuff, then, when somebody comes up, act like they just woke up and go, "What was THAT?!" (http://thinkexist.com/quotation/i_bet_the_main_reason_the_police_keep_people_away/338715.html)” Jack Handy lol

“When I found the skull in the woods, the first thing I did was call the police. But then I got curious about it. I picked it up, and started wondering who this person was, and why he had deer horns. (http://thinkexist.com/quotation/when_i_found_the_skull_in_the_woods-the_first/338695.html)” Jack Handy

I forget where I heard this - 'A park ranger in africa shoots and kills a poacher who was about to kill a rhino- the public wants to know How could you kill a man that was only going to kill an animal?- the park ranger replies with 'when a bank robber is shot dead exiting the bank with a bag full of money nobody so much as flinches.'

[Bud Struggle]

The context is missing when the relevant works cannot be found anywhere. This leads me to suspect that these Mao or Stalin quotes are certainly nothing more than bourgeois inventions.

Here is where the quotes come from:

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/communism.html


Here are the other Mao quotes on the site--most seem pretty reasonable Maoisms:

A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun166490.html)

All reactionaries are paper tigers.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun115706.html)

Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun115703.html)

Despise the enemy strategically, but take him seriously tactically.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun115708.html)

Enable every woman who can work to take her place on the labour front, under the principle of equal pay for equal work.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun389760.html)

Genuine equality between the sexes can only be realized in the process of the socialist transformation of society as a whole.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun389046.html)

I voted for you during your last election.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun162553.html)

In general, any form of exercise, if pursued continuously, will help train us in perseverance. Long-distance running is particularly good training in perseverance.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun402212.html)

In time of difficulties, we must not lose sight of our achievements.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun383756.html)

In waking a tiger, use a long stick.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun137205.html)

Investigation may be likened to the long months of pregnancy, and solving a problem to the day of birth. To investigate a problem is, indeed, to solve it.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun403155.html)

Learn from the masses, and then teach them.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun379116.html)

Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun115705.html)

Once all struggle is grasped, miracles are possible.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun125613.html)

Passivity is fatal to us. Our goal is to make the enemy passive.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun115702.html)

People like me sound like a lot of big cannons.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun115710.html)

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun137206.html)

Political work is the life-blood of all economic work.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun382243.html)

Politics is war without bloodshed, while war is politics with bloodshed.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun161845.html)

Swollen in head, weak in legs, sharp in tongue but empty in belly.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun115707.html)

The atom bomb is a paper tiger which the United States reactionaries use to scare people. It looks terrible, but in fact it isn't.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun403362.html)

The cardinal responsibility of leadership is to identify the dominant contradiction at each point of the historical process and to work out a central line to resolve it.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun166662.html)

The differences between friends cannot but reinforce their friendship.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun383959.html)

The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun138236.html)

There is a serious tendency toward capitalism among the well-to-do peasants.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun384598.html)

We shall heal our wounds, collect our dead and continue fighting.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun383425.html)

We think too small, like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun133401.html)

Weapons are an important factor in war, but not the decisive one; it is man and not materials that counts.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun387195.html)

Women hold up half the sky.
Mao Tse-Tung (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun380326.html)

[red cat]

Here is where the quotes come from:

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/communism.html


Here are the other Mao quotes on the site--most seem pretty reasonable Maoisms:



Didn't verify all of them, but it seems that only that one can be used against Mao, and interestingly enough, unlike most or all other quotes there, it cannot be traced to any of Mao's works.

[Bud Struggle]

Didn't verify all of them, but it seems that only that one can be used against Mao, and interestingly enough, unlike most or all other quotes there, it cannot be traced to any of Mao's works.

If you google the quote--it seems it's listed in a number of places as being by him.

I also found this as an source:




Mao Zedong (1893–1976), Chinese founder of the People's Republic of China. quoted in Time (New York, Dec. 18, 1950).


My guess at this time is that it is real--I'll see if I can't nail it down further.

[red cat]

If you google the quote--it seems it's listed in a number of places as being by him.

I also found this as an source:




My guess at this time is that it is real--I'll see if I can't nail it down further.

A lie can be repeated many times and in many places, much more than you can ever imagine. I appreciate your research efforts, but it is unlikely that you'll find any work by Mao with that quote; it does not match with anything that Mao wrote about communism and it seems pretty meaningless to me. It is closer to the propaganda of a right-wing catholic priest speaking to an audience who know absolutely nothing about communism. There will be no enemies when communism starts.

[Bud Struggle]

Sure, but just so you understand I personally had no intention to decieve.

[red cat]

Sure, but just so you understand I personally had no intention to decieve.

Relax, I never thought or implied that. I have seen this quote earlier many times. :lol:

[ComradeMan]

I can't find that quote- this does raise an issue with the reliability of quotes in general, however it brings up over 70,000 hits.

(http://www.revleft.com/jsp/search_results.jsp;jsessionid=B6057CCAF3F1B9386005 0B37169E0595.bobcatp2?title=On+Practice+and+Contra diction&titleStem=&otherbooks=true&titleOp=AND)

[Ele'ill]

70,000 hits for words and word marriages in the quote or for the entire quote itself?

[ComradeMan]

70,000 hits for words and word marriages in the quote or for the entire quote itself?

I don't know Mari3L, I haven't got the time to check all of them!!! :lol: But I did check about 10 pages and the "whole" quotes were coming up, but nothing I can find has a source and there are so many mirror sites too...

This is bugging me know... damn you Bug Struddle!!!

[Bud Struggle]

On the other hand--and I've seen this myself--when Stalin changed his mind about some policy or other an refrence to the old policy was deleted out of the CPUSA newspaper the Daily Worker. If you go to the NYC Public Library you can see the neatly deleted articles from the copies of the newspaper.

Also Time archives go back to 1951, The article with the Mao quote was supposedly in the Dec. 18, 1950 edition. I do know for certain there was a Time published on that day.

[ComradeMan]

There was a Dec 18th 1950 Time edition. Confirmed.

I have found your quote in the Time magazine, Friday Sept 13 1963.

http://img.timeinc.net/time/images/covers/19630913_107.jpg

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,896935,00.html

Communism is not love!" cried Mao Tse-tung. "Communism is a hammer we use to destroy our enemies!"
Mao, the somewhat enigmatic ruler of Red China, has certainly been flailing in all directions with his hammer of late, but nothing much has been destroyed. Even Nikita Khrushchev, Mao's most recent target, has emerged unscathed from Peking's incessant blows. The only thing Mao has done with his paper hammer is to fan new hatreds for himself and his Red regime.
Tiny Allies. Not too long ago, Red China had friends galore. Many of the underdeveloped nations of Asia, and colonial peoples everywhere, listened admiringly to Mao's boastful plans of a swift transition from poverty to plenty. The left wing in Western Europe and the U.S., disenchanted with Stalin's terror, saw Mao as a new and nobler architect of a peoples' socialism.

[Bud Struggle]

Thank you. It seem to have been a real quote.

[ComradeMan]

Thank you. It seem to have been a real quote.

Maybe... how neutral was Time in the 1950's and 60's with all the McCarthy stuff that went on... ?

Not doubting you Bud, would like to find the when and where too...;)

[Obs]

Am I the only one who doesn't see a problem with that Mao quote?

[red cat]

Maybe... how neutral was Time in the 1950's and 60's with all the McCarthy stuff that went on... ?

Not doubting you Bud, would like to find the when and where too...;)

The paragraph you quoted from the Time makes things very clear. That was during the sino-soviet split. While the revisionist USSR was an enemy of the western bloc, it could still be used as a power to put down revolutions. The worst enemy of imperialism was clearly the anti-revisionist bloc. So the natural strategy would be to attack communism, specially with respect to the Chinese bloc. At that time, when third world communist movements were splitting from their revisionist leaderships largely in favour of the Chinese bloc, it was very necessary to paint Mao as an opportunist dictator and falsely imply that China is being isolated and is powerless against the USSR.

[red cat]

Am I the only one who doesn't see a problem with that Mao quote?

What is communism ?

[red cat]

On the other hand--and I've seen this myself--when Stalin changed his mind about some policy or other an refrence to the old policy was deleted out of the CPUSA newspaper the Daily Worker. If you go to the NYC Public Library you can see the neatly deleted articles from the copies of the newspaper.

Also Time archives go back to 1951, The article with the Mao quote was supposedly in the Dec. 18, 1950 edition. I do know for certain there was a Time published on that day.

Could have been like that with Stalin, but it is unlikely as far as Mao is concerned. There have also been instances of deleting people from photographs during the Stalin-era. But one of the main methods of Maoism has always been to project all incidences, good and bad, before the masses and learn from them, not to delete them from the memory of the masses.

[Manic Impressive]

"Cruel Leaders are replaced only to have new leaders turn cruel"
Che Guevara

I've always wondered what the context of this quote was. Where is it from? Is he speaking in general or about a specific event?

Anyway this is my all time favourite

If you tremble indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine

Che Guevara