Quotes about communism and socialism

"Russian Communism is the illegitimate child of Karl Marx and Catherine the Great."

Attlee, Clement on communism and socialism   

"Experience has taught me that the shallowest of communist platitudes contains more of a hierarchy of meaning than contemporary bourgeois profundity."

Benjamin, Walter on communism and socialism   

"Communism is like one big phone company."

Bruce, Lenny on communism and socialism   

"Socialism is like a dream. Sooner or later you wake up to reality."

Churchill, Winston on communism and socialism
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"The substance of the eminent Socialist gentlemen's speech is that making a profit is a sin. It is my belief that the real sin is taking a loss!"

Churchill, Winston on communism and socialism
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"It is a socialist idea that making profits is a vice; I consider the real vice is making losses."

Churchill, Winston on communism and socialism
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"Socialists think profits are a vice; I consider losses the real vice."

Churchill, Winston on communism and socialism   

"The terrible thing is that one cannot be a Communist and not let oneself in for the shameful act of recantation. One cannot be a Communist and preserve an iota of one's personal integrity."

Djilas, Milovan on communism and socialism   

"There is nothing in socialism that a little age or a little money will not cure."

Durant, William J. on communism and socialism   

"One strength of the communist system of the East is that it has some of the character of a religion and inspires the emotions of a religion."

Einstein, Albert on communism and socialism
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"What is a Communist? One who has yearnings for equal division of unequal earnings."

Elliot, Ebenezer on communism and socialism   

"You'll see certain Pythagorean whose belief in communism of property goes to such lengths that they pick up anything lying about unguarded, and make off with it without a qualm of conscience as if it had come to them by law."

Erasmus, Desiderius on communism and socialism   

"I have no concern with any economic criticisms of the communist system; I cannot inquire into whether the abolition of private property is expedient or advantageous. But I am able to recognize that the psychological premisses on which the system is based are an untenable illusion. In abolishing private property we deprive the human love of aggression of one of its instruments... but we have in no way altered the differences in power and influence which are misused by aggressiveness."

Freud, Sigmund on communism and socialism   

"I am a Communist, a convinced Communist! For some that may be a fantasy. But to me it is my main goal."

Gorbachev, Mikhail on communism and socialism   

"Communism, my friend, is more than Marxism, just as Catholicism is more than the Roman Curia. There is a mystique as well as a politick. Catholics and Communists have committed great crimes, but at least they have not stood aside, like an established society, and been indifferent. I would rather have blood on my hands than water like Pilate."

Greene, Graham on communism and socialism   

"Communism has never come to power in a country that was not disrupted by war or corruption, or both."

Kennedy, John F. on communism and socialism   

"Many people feel empty, a world that seemed so strong just collapsed. Forty years have been wasted on stupid strife for the sake of an unsuccessful experiment. The values gathered together have vanished, the strategies for survival have become ridiculous. And so forty years of our lives have become a story, a bad anecdote. But it may be possible to remember these adventures with a kind of irony."

Konrad, George on communism and socialism   

"Under socialism all will govern in turn and will soon become accustomed to no one governing."

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich on communism and socialism   

"Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country."

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich on communism and socialism   

"Communism is the opiate of the intellectuals [With] no cure except as a guillotine might be called a cure for dandruff."

Luce, Clare Boothe on communism and socialism   

"Communists have always played an active role in the fight by colonial countries for their freedom, because the short-term objects of Communism would always correspond with the long-term objects of freedom movements."

Mandela, Nelson on communism and socialism   

"In a higher phase of communist society... only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be fully left behind and society inscribe on its banners: from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."

Marx, Karl on communism and socialism   

"The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property."

Marx, Karl on communism and socialism   

"A specter is haunting Europe -- the specter of communism."

Marx, Karl on communism and socialism   

"All I know is I'm not a Marxist."

Marx, Karl on communism and socialism   

"In the end we beat them with Levi 501 jeans. Seventy-two years of Communist indoctrination and propaganda was drowned out by a three-ounce Sony Walkman. A huge totalitarian system has been brought to its knees because nobody wants to wear Bulgarian shoes. Now they're lunch, and we're number one on the planet."

O'Rourke, P. J. on communism and socialism   

"The Communism of the English intellectual is something explicable enough. It is the patriotism of the deracinated."

Orwell, George on communism and socialism
3 fans of this quote   

"We are the party of all labor. The whole earth shall be ours to share. And every race and craft our neighbor. No idle class shall linger there like vultures on the wealth we render from field and factory, mill and mine. Tomorrow's sun will rise in splendor and light us till the end of time."

Pottier, Eugene on communism and socialism   

"Communism is inequality, but not as property is. Property is exploitation of the weak by the strong. Communism is exploitation of the strong by the weak."

Proudhon, Pierre Joseph on communism and socialism   

"A common danger tends to concord. Communism is the exploitation of the strong by the weak. In Communism, inequality comes from placing mediocrity on a level with excellence."

Proudhon, Pierre Joseph on communism and socialism   

"Communism is a cow of many; well milked and badly fed."

Proverb, Spanish on communism and socialism   

"Communism is in conflict with human nature."

Renan, Ernest on communism and socialism   

"Socialism must come down from the brain and reach the heart."

Renard, Jules on communism and socialism   

"Communism to me is one-third practice and two-thirds explanation."

Rogers, Will on communism and socialism   

"Communism is like prohibition, it is a good idea, but it won't work."

Rogers, Will on communism and socialism   

"We must conclude that it is not only a particular political ideology that has failed, but the idea that men and women could ever define themselves in terms that exclude their spiritual needs."

Rushdie, Salman on communism and socialism   

"Socialism is a vast machine for churning out piles of goods marked Take it or leave it. "

Seldon, Arthur on communism and socialism   

"The final conflict will be between the Communists and the ex-Communists."

Silone, Ignazio on communism and socialism   

"There are only two sorts of people in life you can trust -- good Christians and good Communists."

Slovo, Joe on communism and socialism   

"For us in Russia communism is a dead dog. For many people in the West, it is still a living lion."

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander on communism and socialism