A Quote by Leon Trotsky
The Soviet State does not need either illusions or camouflage. It can claim only that world authority which is confirmed by the facts.
Related Quotes
Authority that is not confirmed by true reason seems weak. Whereas true reason does not need to be confirmed by any authority.
For authority proceeds from true reason, but reason certainly does not proceed from authority. For every authority which is not upheld by true reason is seen to be weak, whereas true reason is kept firm and immutable by her own powers and does not require to be confirmed by the assent of any authority.
We understand hereby, that the family, the business, science, art and so forth are all social spheres, which do not owe their existence to the State, but obey a high authority within their own bosom; an authority which rules, by the grace of God, just as the sovereignty of the State does.
Every new development for the last three centuries has brought men closer to a state of affairs in which absolutely nothing would be recognized in the whole world as possessing a claim to obedience except the authority of the State. The majority of people in Europe obey nothing else.
The sovereignty of the state as the power that protects the individual and that defines the mutual relationships among the visible spheres, rises high above them by its right to command and compel. But within these spheres ... another authority rules, an authority that descends directly from God apart from the state. This authority the state does not confer but acknowledges.
God has ordained the state as a delegated authority; it is not autonomous. The state is to be an agent of justice, to restrain evil by punishing the wrongdoer, and to protect the good in society. When it does the reverse, it has no proper authority. It is then a usurped authority and as such it becomes lawless and is tyranny.
Now to avoid any collision of armed forces, and perhaps the loss of life, I do this under protest and impelled by said force yield my authority until such time as the Government of the United States shall, upon facts being presented to it, undo the action of its representatives and reinstate me in the authority which I claim as the Constitutional Sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands.
When someone makes a claim against the state, that person must legally verify that the facts in the claim are true.
And finally remember that nothing harms him who is really a citizen, which does not harm the state; nor yet does anything harm the state which does not harm law [order]; and of these things which are called misfortunes not one harms law. What then does not harm law does not harm either state or citizen.
What kind of authority can there be for an 'Apostle' who, unlike the other Apostles, had never been prepared for the Apostolic office in Jesus' own school but had only later dared to claim the Apostolic office on the basis of his own authority? The only question comes to be how the apostle Paul appears in his Epistles to be so indifferent to the historical facts of the life of Jesus....He bears himself but little like a disciple who has received the doctrines and the principles which he preaches from the Master whose name he bears.
A theoretical system does not merely state facts which have been observed and that logically deducible relations to other facts which have also been observed.
An application of judicial power that does not rest on facts is worse than mindless, it is inherently dangerous. If its deployment does not rest on facts - cold, hard, solid facts, established either by admissions or by trials - it serves no lawful or moral purpose and is simply an engine of oppression.
Not just in China, but everywhere in the world without exception, one either leans to the side of imperialism or the side of socialism. Neutrality is mere camouflage; a third road does not exist.
Nobody really thinks who does not abstract from that which is given, who does not relate the facts to the factors which have made them, who does not - in his mind - undo the facts. Abstractness is the very life of thought, the token of its authenticity.
We are living in a highly organized state of socialism. The state is all; the individual is of importance only as he contributes to the welfare of the state. His property is only his as the state does not need it. He must hold his life and his possessions at the call of the state.
It is no use dealing with illusions and make-believes. We must look at the facts. The world ... is too dangerous for anyone to be able to afford to nurse illusions. We must look at realities.
Related Authors
Ali Shariati Quotes
Iranian
Revolutionary
Buenaventura Durruti Quotes
Spanish
Revolutionary
Che Guevara Quotes
Argentinian
Revolutionary
Emiliano Zapata Quotes
Mexican
Revolutionary
Georges Jacques Danton Quotes
French
Revolutionary
Hassan Nasrallah Quotes
Lebanese
Revolutionary
Ho Chi Minh Quotes
Vietnamese
Revolutionary
Johann Most Quotes
German
Revolutionary
Marquis de Lafayette Quotes
French
Revolutionary
Mikhail Bakunin Quotes
Russian
Revolutionary
Nathan Hale Quotes
American
Revolutionary
Peter Kropotkin Quotes
Russian
Revolutionary
Samuel Adams Quotes
American
Revolutionary
Simon Bolivar Quotes
Venezuelan
Revolutionary
William Wallace Quotes
Scottish
Revolutionary