Leonardo da Vinci: Those who fall in love with practice without science are like a sailor who enters a ship without a helm or a compass, and who never can be certain whither he is going. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5140
Haile Selassie I: Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5151
Stalin: How do the Social-Democratic parties of the West exist and develop nowadays? Have they inner-party contradictions, disagreements based on principle? Of course, they have. Do they disclose these contradictions and try to over come them honestly and openly in sight of the mass of the party membership? No, of course not. It is the practice of the Social-Democrats to cover up and conceal these contradictions and disagreements. It is the practice of the Social-Democrats to turn their conferences and congresses into an empty parade of ostensible well-being, assiduously covering up and slurring over internal disagreements. But nothing can come of this except stuffing people's heads with rubbish and the ideological impoverishment of the party. This is one of the reasons for the decline of West-European Social-Democracy, which was once revolutionary, and is now reformist. We, however, cannot live and develop in that way, comrades. The policy of a "middle" line in matters of principle is not our policy. The policy of a "middle" line in matters of principle is the policy of decaying and degenerating parties. Such a policy cannot but lead to the conversion of the party into an empty bureaucratic apparatus, running idle and divorced from the masses of the workers. That path is not our path. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5153
Stalin: I think that the source of the contradictions within the proletarian parties lies in two circumstances. What are these circumstances? They are, firstly, the pressure exerted by the bourgeoisie and bourgeois ideology on the proletariat and its party in the conditions of the class struggle—a pressure to which the least stable strata of the proletariat, and, hence, the least stable strata of the proletarian party, not infrequently succumb. It must not be thought that the proletariat is completely isolated from society, that it stands outside society. The proletariat is a part of society, connected with its diverse strata by numerous threads. But the party is a part of the proletariat. Hence the Party cannot be exempt from connections with, and from the influence of, the diverse sections of bourgeois society. The pressure of the bourgeoisie and its ideology on the proletariat and its party finds expression in the fact that bourgeois ideas, manners, customs and sentiments not infrequently penetrate the proletariat and its party through definite strata of the proletariat that are in one way or another connected with bourgeois society. They are, secondly, the heterogeneity of the working class, the existence of different strata within the working class. I think that the proletariat, as a class, can be divided into three strata. One stratum is the main mass of the proletariat, its core, its permanent part, the mass of "pure-blooded" proletarians, who have long broken off connection with the capitalist class. This stratum of the proletariat is the most reliable bulwark of Marxism. The second stratum consists of newcomers from non-proletarian classes—from the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie or the intelligentsia. These are former members of other classes who have only recently merged with the proletariat and have brought with them into the working class their customs, their habits, their waverings and their vacillations. This stratum constitutes the most favourable soil for all sorts of anarchist, semi-anarchist and "ultra-Left" groups. The third stratum, lastly, consists of the labour aristocracy, the upper stratum of the working class, the most well-to-do portion of the proletariat, with its propensity for compromise with the bourgeoisie, its predominant inclination to adapt itself to the powers that be, and its anxiety to "get on in life." This stratum constitutes the most favourable soil for outright reformists and opportunists. Notwithstanding their superficial difference, these last two strata of the working class constitute a more or less common nutritive medium for opportunism in general—open opportunism, when the sentiments of the labour aristocracy gain the upper hand, and opportunism camouflaged with "Left" phrases, when the sentiments of the semi-middle-class strata of the working class which have not yet completely broken with the petty-bourgeois environment gain the upper hand. The fact that "ultra-Left" sentiments very often coincide with the sentiments of open opportunism is not at all surprising. Lenin said time and again that the "ultra-Left" opposition is the reverse side of the Right-wing, Menshevik, openly opportunist opposition. And that is quite true. If the "ultra-Lefts" stand for revolution only because they expect the victory of the revolution the very next day, then obviously they must fall into despair and be disillusioned in the revolution if the revolution is delayed, if the revolution is not victorious the very next day. Naturally, with every turn in the development of the class struggle, with every sharpening of the struggle and intensification of difficulties, the differences in the views, customs and sentiments of the various strata of the proletariat must inevitably make themselves felt in the shape of definite disagreements within the party, and the pressure of the bourgeoisie and its ideology must inevitably accentuate these disagreements by providing them with an outlet in the form of a struggle within the proletarian party. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5154
John Brown: I have only a short time to live, only one death to die, and I will die fighting for this cause. There will be no peace in this land until slavery is done for. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5167
Mahmoud Darwish: The wars will end and the leaders will shake hands, and that old woman will remain waiting for her martyred son, and that girl will wait for her beloved husband, and the children will wait for their heroic father, I do not know who sold the homeland but I know who paid the price. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5169
John Brown: Slavery, throughout its entire existence in the United States, is none other than the most barbarous, unprovoked and unjustifiable war of one portion of its citizens against another portion, the only conditions of which are perpetual imprisonment and hopeless servitude, or absolute extermination, in utter disregard and violation of those eternal and self-evident truths set forth in our Declaration of Independence. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5170
Yemelyan Yaroslavsky: In 1939, a very dangerous situation for the USSR had been created in Europe. Having seized Czechoslovakia and Austria, the German fascists were preparing to seize other states. At this time, many capitalist states incited Germany to direct its military forces against the USSR, to attack us. The foreign newspapers of the capitalist states openly wrote that Germany could seize everything she needed in the East, that is, in the USSR: land, raw materials, food, ore, oil, cotton, and the like. What was the Soviet state to do then? Go to war with Germany? At that time, such a war would have been even more dangerous for the Soviet state. The Soviet Government and the Bolshevik Party, headed by Comrade Stalin, did everything to avoid war. We knew that this war would be very difficult. If we had gone to such a war then, the position of the Soviet state would have been much more dangerous than it is now. Comrade Stalin has already answered the question whether the Soviet Government did the right thing by signing in 1939 a non-aggression pact (that is, a treaty) with the fascist government of Germany. “One may ask,” said Comrade Stalin, “how could it have happened that the Soviet Government agreed to conclude a non-aggression pact with such treacherous people and monsters as Hitler and Ribbentrop? Was there not a mistake on the part of the Soviet Government here? Of course not! A non-aggression pact is a peace pact between two states. It was precisely such a pact that Germany proposed to us in 1939. Could the Soviet Government refuse such a proposal? I think that no peace-loving state can refuse a peace agreement with a neighboring power, even if such monsters and cannibals as Hitler and Ribbentrop are at the head of this power. And this, of course, under one indispensable condition: that the peace agreement does not affect either directly or indirectly the territorial integrity, independence and honor of the peace-loving states.” This agreement lasted a year and a half, during which time Hitler repeatedly stated that he would never fight against the USSR. So on August 25, 1939, he told the British Ambassador Henderson that “Russia and Germany will never again take up arms against each other.” On September 1, 1939, he spoke in the German parliament: “Russia and Germany fought against each other during the world war! It shouldn not and will not happen a second time.” These were treacherous, false words, because Hitler was preparing to attack the USSR at the same time. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5171
