Floyd Red Crow Westerman: There is an ancient Indian saying that something lives only as long as the last person who remembers it. My people have come to trust memory over history. Memory, like fire, is radiant and immutable while history serves only those who seek to control it, those who douse the flame of memory in order to put out the dangerous fire of truth. Beware these men for they are dangerous themselves and unwise. Their false history is written in the blood of those who might remember and of those who seek the truth. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote4833

Assata Shakur: No movement can survive unless it is constantly growing and changing with the times. If it isn’t growing, it’s stagnant, and without the support of the people, no movement for liberation can exist, no matter how correct its analysis of the situation is. That’s why political work and organizing are so important. Unless you are addressing the issues people are concerned about and contributing positive direction, they’ll never support you. The first thing the enemy tries to do is isolate revolutionaries from the masses of people, making us horrible and hideous monsters so that our people will hate us. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote4834

Enver Hoxha: Both when they are in opposition as well as when they are at the head of bourgeois governments, or take part in them, the heads of social democracy serve to preserve and strengthen the bourgeois order through all their views and acts. They are at the head of or take part to this day in the governments of capitalist countries. And what have they done for the workers, for socialism? They have done nothing. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote4835

Gáspár Miklós Tamás: There is no ‘people’, there are only classes. Like the bourgeoisie itself, the working class is the result of the destruction of a previous social order. Marx does not believe in the self-creation or the self-invention of the working class, parallel to or alongside capitalism, through the edification of an independent set of social values, habits and techniques of resistance. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote4836

Vladimir Putin: It's God's job to forgive terrorists, my job is to send them to him. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote4837

Lenin: Marxism teaches the proletarian not to keep aloof from the bourgeois revolution, not to be indifferent to it, not to allow the leadership of the revolution to be assumed by the bourgeoisie but, on the contrary, to take a most energetic part in it, to fight most resolutely for consistent proletarian democracy, for carrying the revolution to its conclusion. We cannot jump out of the bourgeois-democratic boundaries of the Russian revolution, but we can vastly extend these boundaries, and within these boundaries we can and must fight for the interests of the proletariat, for its immediate needs and for the conditions that will make it possible to prepare its forces for the future complete victory. There is bourgeois democracy and bourgeois democracy. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote4838

Lenin: The new-Iskraists thoroughly misunderstand the meaning and significance of the category: bourgeois revolution. Through their arguments there constantly runs the idea that a bourgeois revolution is a revolution which can be advantageous only to the bourgeoisie. And yet nothing is more erroneous than such an idea. A bourgeois revolution is a revolution which does not go beyond the limits of the bourgeois, i.e., capitalist, social and economic system. A bourgeois revolution expresses the need for the development of capitalism, and far from destroying the foundations of capitalism, it does the opposite, it broadens and deepens them. This revolution therefore expresses the interests not only of the working class, but of the entire bourgeoisie as well. Since the rule of the bourgeoisie over the working class is inevitable under capitalism, it is quite correct to say that a bourgeois revolution expresses the interests not so much of the proletariat as of the bourgeoisie. But it is entirely absurd to think that a bourgeois revolution does not express the interests of the proletariat at all. This absurd idea boils down either to the hoary Narodnik theory that a bourgeois revolution runs counter to the interests of the proletariat, and that therefore we do not need bourgeois political liberty; or to anarchism, which rejects all participation of the proletariat in bourgeois politics, in a bourgeois revolution and in bourgeois parliamentarism. From the standpoint of theory, this idea disregards the elementary propositions of Marxism concerning the inevitability of capitalist development where commodity production exists. Marxism teaches that a society which is based on commodity production, and which has commercial intercourse with civilised capitalist nations, at a certain stage of its development, itself, inevitably takes the road of capitalism. Marxism has irrevocably broken with the ravings of the Narodniks and the anarchists to the effect that Russia, for instance, can avoid capitalist development, jump out of capitalism, or skip over it and proceed along some path other than the path of the class struggle on the basis and within the framework of this same capitalism. All these principles of Marxism have been proved and explained over and over again in minute detail in general and with regard to Russia in particular. And from these principles it follows that the idea of seeking salvation for the working class in anything save the further development of capitalism is reactionary. In countries like Russia, the working class suffers not so much from capitalism as from the insufficient development of capitalism. The working class suffers not so much from capitalism as from the insufficient development of capitalism. The working class is therefore decidedly interested in the broadest, freest and most rapid development of capitalism. The removal of all the remnants of the old order which are hampering the broad, free and rapid development of capitalism is of decided advantage to the working class. The bourgeois revolution is precisely a revolution that most resolutely sweeps away the survivals of the past, the remnants of serfdom (which include not only autocracy but monarchy as well) and most fully guarantees the broadest, freest and most rapid development of capitalism. That is why a bourgeois revolution is in the highest degree advantageous to the proletariat. A bourgeois revolution is absolutely necessary in the interests of the proletariat. The more complete and determined, the more consistent the bourgeois revolution, the more assured will be the proletarian struggle against the bourgeoisie for Socialism. Only those who are ignorant of the rudiments of scientific Socialism can regard this conclusion as new or strange, paradoxical. And from this conclusion, among other things, follows the thesis that, in a certain sense, a bourgeois revolution is more advantageous to the proletariat than to the bourgeoisie. This thesis is unquestionably correct in the following sense: it is to the advantage of the bourgeoisie to rely on certain remnants of the past as against the proletariat, for instance, on the monarchy, the standing army, etc. It is to the advantage of the bourgeoisie if the bourgeois revolution does not too resolutely sweep away all the remnants of the past, but leaves some of them, i.e., if this revolution is not fully consistent, if it is not complete and if it is not determined and relentless. Social-Democrats often express this idea somewhat differently by stating that the bourgeoisie betrays its own self, that the bourgeoisie betrays the cause of liberty, that the bourgeoisie is incapable of being consistently democratic. It is of greater advantage to the bourgeoisie if the necessary changes in the direction of bourgeois democracy take place more slowly, more gradually, more cautiously, less resolutely, by means of reforms and not by means of revolution; if these changes spare the “venerable” institutions of serfdom (such as the monarchy) as much as possible; if these changes develop as little as possible the independent revolutionary activity, initiative and energy of the common people, i.e., the peasantry and especially the workers, for otherwise it will be easier for the workers, as the French say, “to hitch the rifle from one shoulder to the other,” i.e., to turn against the bourgeoisie the guns which the bourgeois revolution will place in their hands, the liberty which the revolution will bring, the democratic institutions which will spring up on the ground that is cleared of serfdom. On the other hand, it is more advantageous for the working class if the necessary changes in the direction of bourgeois democracy take place by way of revolution and not by way of reform; for the way of reform is the way of delay, of procrastination, of the painfully slow decomposition of the putrid parts of the national organism. It is the proletariat and the peasantry that suffer first of all and most of all from their putrefaction. The revolutionary way is the way of quick amputation, which is the least painful to the proletariat, the way of the direct removal of the decomposing parts, the way of fewest concessions to and least consideration for the monarchy and the disgusting, vile, rotten and contaminating institutions which go with it. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote4839

Eugene V. Debs: I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote4840

Mao Zedong: Our comrades must understand that we study Marxism-Leninism not for display, nor because there is any mystery about it, but solely because it is the science which leads the revolutionary cause of the proletariat to victory. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote4841

John Jay: It is too true, however disgraceful it may be to human nature, that nations in general will make war whenever they have a prospect of getting anything by it. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote4842

Enver Hoxha: The establishment of our People's Rule throughout the country on the 29th of November, 1944, is the greatest victory in the centuries-long history of the Albanian people. The people's power, the dictatorship of the proletariat, is their most powerful weapon in the struggle for the new, free and happy life — socialism and communism. The outstanding merit of the Party is that it closely connected and integrated into a single whole, the struggle for national liberation and the struggle for the destruction of the old, antipopular and reactionary State power, for the establishment of the people's power. The Party never allowed the bourgeoisie and the landowners to rob the people of their power or that the blood they shed should have been shed in vain. With its greatest determination it barred the road to the interference of the British and U.S. imperialists in the internal affairs of our country. This consistent line resulted in that right after the liberation of the Homeland, there existed and acted in Albania only the new power, the people's power, which started to perform the functions of the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote4843

Albert Einstein: The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote4844

Stalin: Owing to pressure from below, the pressure of the masses, the bourgeoisie may sometimes concede certain partial reforms while remaining on the basis of the existing social-economic system. Acting in this way, it calculates that these concessions are necessary in order to preserve its class rule. This is the essence of reform. Revolution, however, means the transference of power from one class to another. That is why it is impossible to describe any reform as revolution. That is why we cannot count on the change of social systems taking place as an imperceptible transition from one system to another by means of reforms, by the ruling class making concessions. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote4845

Stalin: The rich experience of history teaches that up to now not a single class has voluntarily made way for another class. There is no such precedent in world history. The Communists have learned this lesson of history. Communists would welcome the voluntary departure of the bourgeoisie. But such a turn of affairs is improbable; that is what experience teaches. That is why the Communists want to be prepared for the worst and call upon the working class to be vigilant, to be prepared for battle. Who wants a captain who lulls the vigilance of his army, a captain who does not understand that the enemy will not surrender, that he must be crushed? To be such a captain means deceiving, betraying the working class. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote4846

Enver Hoxha: J. V. Stalin, as the main leader of the Party, made a great contribution to the successful direction of the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union and the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union against fascism; he further developed Marxism-Leninism in a series of important questions of the Soviet socialist society and the construction of socialism and communism; he made a valuable contribution to the consolidation of the socialist camp and the international communist movement, as well as to the exposure of modern revisionism in the person of Tito's revisionist traitorous group. By thus appraising J. V. Stalin's activity, there is not doubt that the errors he may have committed during the last years of his life were partial and they cannot serve as a criterion to make a general evaluation of J. V. Stalin's person and his activity. In the general evaluation of J. V. Stalin's activity, in the foreground stand his great merits, his fight for the defense of Leninism, his struggle for the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union, his struggle for the creation and consolidation of the socialist camp, for the strengthening of the unity of the international communist and workers' movement; his consistent fight against imperialism; his policy for the defence of peace and the peaceful coexistence. They constitute his main characteristic feature as a leader and as a communist. Such has been and remains the firm position of the Party of Labor of Albania relating to the evaluation of J. V. Stalin's work. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote4847

Carl Sagan: One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote4848