"The experience that was had in this common course and condition...may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato's and other ancients applauded by some of later times; that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing...For the young men that were most able and fit for labour and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense." - William Bradford Plymouth Colony
“We never thought that our failure was due to the impracticability of its principles, but to the ignorance of the masses and the greed of the few who are able to rule the world for their interests alone.” - Marie Marchand Ross Icarian Colony Iowa
“We have said that there could not have been Social-Democratic consciousness among the workers. It would have to be brought to them from without. The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade-union consciousness… The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical, and economic theories elaborated by educated representatives of the propertied classes, by intellectuals.” - Vladimer Lenin What is to Be Done? 1902
“Ideology — that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others’ eyes" - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
“Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future.” - Vaclav Havel The Power of the Powerless
" The revolutionary elite becomes a privileged ruling stratum that
controls the state and the means of production while excluding the workers from real power — a “new class” that rules in the name of the proletariat. " - Milovan Djilas
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” - Winston Churchill
