It is impossible to predict the time and progress of revolution. It is governed by its own more or less mysterious laws.
Vladimir LeninRead
Sometimes - history needs a push.
Interpretation
History can be influenced by decisive actions and movements.
In this quote, Lenin suggests that pivotal moments in history often do not unfold without significant intervention or action. It implies that while events may seem predetermined, they can be shifted or accelerated by the will and actions of individuals or groups who are willing to push for change and initiate new directions.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about social movements and their impacts on society.
It is impossible to predict the time and progress of revolution. It is governed by its own more or less mysterious laws.
For the complete extinction of the state, complete Communism is necessary.
Medicine is the keystone of the arch of socialism.
A democracy is a state which recognizes the subjection of the minority to the majority, that is, an organization for the systematic use of violence by one class against the other, by one part of the population against another.
We are not utopians, we do not βdreamβ of dispensing at once with all administration, with all subordination. These anarchist dreams, based upon incomprehension of the tasks of the proletarian dictatorship, are totally alien to Marxism, and, as a matter of fact, serve only to postpone the socialist revolution until people are different. No, we want the socialist revolution with people as they are now, with people who cannot dispense with subordination, control, and "foremen and accountants".
The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.
For the timid, change is frightening; for the comfortable, change is threatening; but for the confident, change is opportunity.
If the culture you have is radically different from an 'experiment and take-risk' culture, then you have a big change you going to have to make - and no little gimmicks are going to do it for you.
After living with their dysfunctional behavior for so many years, people become invested in defending their dysfunctions rather than changing them.
The most important factor in survival is neither intelligence nor strength but adaptability.
Let not men then in the pride of power, use the same arguments that tyrannic kings and venal ministers have used, and fallaciously assert that women ought to be subjected because she has always been so.... It is time to effect a revolution in female manners - time to restore to them their lost dignity.... It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners.
We cannot take for granted that the future will be better, and that means we need to work to create it today.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.