Communism needs democracy like the human body needs oxygen.
Leon TrotskyRead
Events can neither be regarded as a series of adventures nor strung on the thread of a preconceived moral. They must obey their own laws.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Events occur according to their intrinsic nature rather than fitting into human-made narratives or morals.
In this quote, Trotsky emphasizes that events in life should be understood on their own terms, following their inherent rules rather than being forced to conform to a narrative or moral guideline created by individuals. This perspective highlights the complexity and unpredictability of life, suggesting that we cannot always impose our interpretations or expectations upon the experiences we encounter.
Themes
EventsLawsPhilosophyNarrativeNature
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on the unpredictability of life, one might quote Trotsky to illustrate that not everything has a clear moral or lesson.
More from Leon Trotsky
All quotes βAbusive language and swearing are a legacy of slavery, humiliation, and disrespect for human dignity, oneβs own and that of other people.
Leon TrotskyRead
In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation. The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall not eat.
Leon TrotskyRead
Man will become immeasurably stronger, wiser, and subtler; his body will become more harmonious, his movements more rhythmic, his voice more musical. The forms of life will become dynamically dramatic. The average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above these heights, new peaks will rise.
Leon TrotskyRead
The masses go into a revolution not with a prepared plan of social reconstruction, but with a sharp feeling that they cannot endure the old regime. Only the guiding layers of a class have a political program, and even this still requires the test of events and the approval of the masses.
Leon TrotskyRead
History has different yardsticks for the cruelty of the Northerners and the cruelty of the Southerners in the Civil War. A slave-owner who through cunning and violence shackles a slave in chains, and a slave who through cunning or violence breaks the chains β let not the contemptible eunuchs tell us that they are equals before a court of morality!
Leon TrotskyRead
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His mouth opens. From inside him comes a slow stream, without breath, without interruption. It flows up through his body and out upon me; it passes through the cabin, through the wreck; washing the cliffs and shores of the island, it runs northward and southward to the ends of the earth. Soft and cold, dark and unending, it beats against my eyelids, against the skin of my face.
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In peace sons bury fathers, but war violates the order of nature, and fathers bury sons.
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We should be slower to think that the man at his worst is the real man, and certain that the better we are ourselves the less likely is he to be at his worst in our company. Every time he talks away his own character before us he is signifying contempt for ours.
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One mustn't ask apple trees for oranges, France for sun, women for love, life for happiness.
Gustave FlaubertRead