Look back at history - those who guided the revolution in the time of its culmination never kept their leading positions long after the turning point.

Only the defeat of the proletariat in Germany in 1923 gave the decisive push to the creation of Stalin's theory of national socialism: the downward curve of the revolution gave rise to Stalinism, not to the theory of the permanent revolution, which was first formulated by me in 1905. This theory is not bound to a definite calendar of revolutionary events; it only reveals the world-wide interdependence of the revolutionary process.

What shall we call an "immediate possibility"? In 1923 the situation in Germany was profoundly revolutionary, but what was lacking for a victorious revolution was a correct strategy.

It is also false that the revolution ripens and comes to development only in the national soil.

Revolutions are always verbose.

The revolution has its own laws: in the period of its culmination it pushes the most highly developed, determined and far-seeing stratum of the revolutionary class to the most advanced positions.

No one revolution up to now has brought all that was expected of it by the masses. Hence the inevitability of a certain disillusionment, of a lowering of the activity of the vanguard, and consequently, of the growing importance of the rearguard. [Joseph] Stalin's faction has raised itself on the wave of reaction against the October revolution.

In 1925 - 27 the revolution in China was destroyed by the false revolutionary strategy of the Stalinist faction. To this last question I consecrate my book, Problems of the Chinese Revolution (issued by the Pioneer Publishers, New York 1932).

[Vladimir] Lenin died in January, 1924; three months later [Joseph] Stalin expounded in writing Lenin's conception of the proletarian revolution.

Once again, he who ignores the problems of revolutionary strategy would do better not to talk about revolutions at all.

[Joseph] Stalin closes the exposition of these [Leon Trotsky] ideas with the words, "Such are in general the characteristic features of [Vladimir] Lenin's conception of the proletarian revolution."

It is quite clear that the German and Chinese revolutions in case of victory would have changed the face of Europe and Asia, and perhaps of the whole world.

The theory of the permanent revolution, in contradiction to the theory of socialism in one country, was recognized by the entire Bolshevik party during the period from 1917 to 1923.

It is therefore not true that the mere existence of the Soviet Union is capable of assuring the victory of the revolution in other countries.

In spite of the existence of the Soviet Union, however, the proletarian revolution during the past years has not recorded a victory in any other country.

My God! This is a revolution! We have to offend someone!

We are in the the very midst of a revolution, the most complete, unexpected and remarkable of any in the history of nations.

This is a revolution, damn it! We're going to have to offend somebody!

Elections to office, which are the great objects of ambition, I look at with terror!

During the whole time I sat with him in Congress, I never heard him utter three sentences together.

You are a Virginian, and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. I am obnoxious, suspected and unpopular; you are very much otherwise. And you can write ten times better than I can.

This project shows others what is possible, and it is already helping to propel the green building revolution.

Objects of the most stupendous magnitude, and measure in which the lives and liberties of millions yet unborn are intimately interested, are now before us. We are in the very midst of a revolution the most complete, unexpected and remarkable of any in the history of nations.

I was very strenuous for retaining and insisting on it [law of nature], as a resource to which we might be driven by Parliament much sooner than we were aware.