"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways: the point, however, is to change it."
— Karl Marx

"Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex, the ugly ones included."
— Karl Marx

"The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope."
— Karl Marx

"Karl Marx got a bum rap. All he was trying to do was figure out how to take care of a whole lot of people. Of course, socialism is just “evil” now. It’s completely discredited, supposedly, by the collapse of the Soviet Union. I can’t help noticing that my grandchildren are heavily in hock to communist China now, which is evidently a whole lot better at business than we are. You talk about the collapse of communism or the Soviet Union. My goodness, this country collapsed in 1929. I mean it crashed, big time, and capitalism looked like a very poor idea."
— Kurt Vonnegut

"History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce."
— Karl Marx

"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."
— Karl Marx

"Men make their own history but not in circumstances of their own choosing."
— Karl Marx

"Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution."
— Karl Marx

"To See a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour."
— William Blake

"If the Doors of Perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it truly is - infinite."
— William Blake

"The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind."
— William Blake

"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes. By the deep sea, and music in its roars; I love not man the less, but nature more."
— George Gordon Byron

"She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes..."
— George Gordon Byron

"If I do not write to empty my mind, I go mad."
— George Gordon Byron

"But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew, upon a thought produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions think."
— George Gordon Byron

"Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today."
— James Dean

"I have not loved the world, nor the world me, but let us part fair foes; I do believe, though I have found them not, that there may be words which are things, hopes which will not deceive, and virtues which are merciful, or weave snares for the failing: I would also deem o'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve; that two, or one, are almost what they seem, that goodness is no name, and happiness no dream."
— George Gordon Byron

"Between two worlds life hovers like a star, twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge."
— George Gordon Byron

"She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent! "
— George Gordon Byron

"Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom."
— Aristotle

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
— Aristotle (Metaphysics)

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages."
— William Shakespeare

"Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come."
— William Shakespeare (Julius Caesar)

"My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, or else my heart concealing it will break."
— William Shakespeare (The Taming of the Shrew)

"Lord, what fools these mortals be!"
— William Shakespeare

"What's the earth
With all its art, verse, music, worth —
Compared with love, found, gained, and kept?
"
— Robert Browning ,"Dis Aliter Visum; or, Le Byron De Nos Jours

"Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made. Our times are in his hand who saith, 'A whole I planned, youth shows but half; Trust God: See all, nor be afraid!"
— Robert Browning

"Out of your whole life give but a moment!
All of your life that has gone before,
All to come after it, -so you ignore,
So you make perfect the present, condense,
In a rapture of rage, for perfection's endowment,
Thought and feeling and soul and sense. "
— Robert Browning

"Best be yourself, imperial, plain, and true."
— Robert Browning

"The rain set early in tonight,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its best to vex the lake:
I listened with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight
She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up and all the cottage warm;"
— Robert Browning

"A lie told often enough becomes the truth."
— Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

"Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners."
— Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

"Sometimes - History needs a push"
— V. I. Lenin

"Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle."
— Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

"Give me just one generation of youth, and I'll transform the whole world."
— Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

"In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
— George Orwell

"Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. "
— George Orwell

"The most effective way to destroy a people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history."
— George Orwell

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."
— George Orwell

"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever."
— George Orwell (1984)

"Big Brother is Watching You."
— George Orwell (1984)

"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."
— George Orwell (Animal Farm)

"Writing a book is a horrible,
exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand."
— George Orwell

"The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection."
— George Orwell

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
— George Orwell

"Everything is relative in this world, where change alone endures."
— Leon Trotsky

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
— Edmund Burke

"Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves."
— Herbert Marcuse

"The so-called consumer society and the politics of corporate capitalism have created a second nature of man which ties him libidinally and aggressively to the commodity form. The need for possessing, consuming, handling and constantly renewing the gadgets, devices, instruments, engines, offered to and imposed upon the people, for using these wares even at the danger of one’s own destruction, has become a “biological” need."
— Herbert Marcuse

"The strains and stresses suffered by the individual in society are grounded in the normal functioning of that society (and of the individual!) rather than in its disturbances and diseases."
— Herbert Marcuse