Quotes from Rosa Luxemburg

Freiheit, ist immer die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden

If I feel by intuition that he doesn't love me anymore, I will immediately fly away like a stricken bird

The ultra-centralism asked by Lenin is full of the sterile spirit of the overseer. It is not a positive and creative spirit. Lenin's concern is not so much to make the activity of the party more fruitful as to control the party--to narrow the movement rather than to develop it, to bind rather than to unify it. . . . What is today only a phantom haunting Lenin's imagination may become reality tomorrow.

The solemn stillness of the morning hour lay over the pavement; above in the window panes the early gold of the young sun glistened, and high above swam little roseate clouds which then dissolved into the grey city sky. At that time, as a child, I firmly believed that "life", "real" life, was somewhere far away, beyond the roofs. Since then I have been travelling after it. But it is still hidden away behind the roofs somewhere...

I feel, in a word, the need as [Wladyslaw] Heine would say, to "say something great" Ã¢â'¬Â¦ I feel that within me there is maturing a completely new and original form which dispenses with the usual formulas and patterns and breaks them down Ã¢â'¬Â¦ I feel with utter certainty that something is there, that something will be born.*

Fourier's scheme of changing, by means of phalansteries, the water of all the seas into tasty lemonade was surely a phantastic idea. But Bernstein, proposing to change the sea of capitalist bitterness into a sea of socialist sweetness, by progressively pouring into it bottles of social reformist lemonade, presents an idea that is merely more insipid but no less phantastic.

As long as theoretic knowledge remains the privilege of a handful of "academicians" in the Party, the latter will face the danger of going astray.

Sonjuschka, Liebste, seien Sie trotz alledem ruhig und heiter. So ist das Leben, und so muß man es nehmen, tapfer, unverzagt und lächelnd – trotz alledem." (Letters to Sonja Liebknecht)

What distinguishes bourgeoisie society from other class societies…? Precisely the fact that class domination does not rest on "acquired rights" but on real economic relations – the fact that wage labor is not a judicial relation, but purely an economic relation… How can wage slavery be suppressed by the "legislative way", if wage slavery is not expressed [by] the laws?

Just as all roads lead to Rome, so, too, do we logically arrive at the conclusion that the revisionist proposal to slight the final aim of the Socialist movement is really a recommendation to renounce the Socialist movement itself.

Social Democracy, does not, however, expect to attain its aim either as a result of the victorious violence of a minority or through the numerical superiority of a majority. It sees socialism come as a result of economic necessity - and the comprehension of that necessity - leading to the suppression of capitalism by the working masses. And this necessity manifests itself above all in the anarchy of capitalism.

L'acte le plus révolutionnaire est une vision claire du monde tel qu'il est réellement

L'égalité politique s'incarne à partir du moment où l'exploitation économique est radicalement anéantie

If the proletariat came to power, it could draw from Bernstein's theory the following 'practical' conclusion: to go to sleep.

De menselijke psyche herbergt, net als Thalatta - de eeuwige zee - alle mogelijkheden in zich: een dodelijke luwte en de razende storm, de ergste lafheid en het wildste heroïsme. De massa is altijd wat zij in overeenstemming met de tijd en de situatie moet zijn, en zij staat altijd gereed de sprong te wagen en iets heel anders te worden dan zij schijnt.

Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.

Der "Bolschewismus" ist das Stichwort für den praktischen revolutionären Sozialismus, für alle Bestrebungen der Arbeiterklasse zur Machteroberung geworden.

Capitalist development modifies essentially the nature of the State, widening its sphere of action, constantly imposing on it new functions (especially those affecting economic life), making more and more necessary its intervention and control in society.

The solemn stillness of the morning hour lay over the pavement; above in the window panes the early gold of the young sun glistened, and high above swam little roseate clouds which then dissolved into the grey city sky. At that time, as a child, I firmly believed that "life", "real" life, was somewhere far away, beyond the roofs. Since then I have been travelling after it.

The sorry existence to which this mental tendency was condemned in recent decades by the powerful development of social democracy in Germany may, to a certain extent, be explained by the exclusive domination and long duration of the parliamentary period. A

By the way, everything would be much easier to live through if only I would not forget the basic rule I've made for my life: To be kind and good is the main thing! Plainly and simply, to be good—that resolves and unites everything and is better than all cleverness and insistence on "being right.

All the errors of this school rest precisely on the conception that mistakes the phenomena of competition, as seen from the angle of the isolated capitalist, for the phenomena of the whole of capitalist economy.

Today he who wants to pass as a Socialist, and at the same would declare war on Marxian doctrine, the most stupendous product of the human mind in the century, must begin with involuntary esteem for Marx.

No coarser insult, no baser aspersion, can be thrown against the workers than the remark: "Theoretic controversies are only for academicians.