Proletarian Quotes

“[Letter to his wife, Natalia Sedova]

In addition to the happiness of being a fighter for the cause of socialism, fate gave me the happiness of being her husband. During the almost forty years of our life together she remained an inexhaustible source of love, magnanimity, and tenderness. She underwent great sufferings, especially in the last period of our lives. But I find some comfort in the fact that she also knew days of happiness.

For forty-three years of my conscious life I have remained a revolutionist; for forty-two of them I have fought under the banner of Marxism. If I had to begin all over again I would of course try to avoid this or that mistake, but the main course of my life would remain unchanged. I shall die a proletarian revolutionist, a Marxist, a dialectical materialist, and, consequently, an irreconcilable atheist. My faith in the communist future of mankind is not less ardent, indeed it is firmer today, than it was in the days of my youth.

Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full.”
― Leon Trotsky

“I tell you," said Augustine, "if there is anything that revealed with the strength of a divine law in our times, it is that the masses are to rise, and the under class becomes the upper one.”
― Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin

“Die Proletarier dieser Welt haben nichts zu verlieren als ihre Ketten. Sie haben eine Welt zu gewinnen. Proletarier aller Länder, vereinigt euch!”
― Karl Marx

“The supporters of the proletarian revolution have staked their lives on a philosophy. It is the only reason they have for going on with the grim job of living. You cannot accept them to admit even to themselves that Russia has proved them wrong - or Mexico - without the comfort of a dramatic conversion to some other faith. Nobody can endure existence without a philosophy.”
― Graham Greene, The Lawless Roads

“Proletarians of the world, look into the depths of your own beings, seek out the truth and realise it yourselves: you will find it nowhere else.”
― Peter Arshinov, History of the Makhnovist Movement, 1918-1921

“Skill, yakni tukang atau pandai, pada zaman dahulu bertukar dengan dexterity, keawasan, ketika menjaga mesin di zaman sekarang.... Merdeka pada zaman dahulu berganti jadi budak mesin zaman sekarang" Tan Malaka”
― Tan Malaka, Madilog