Quotes from Joseph Stalin

You are engineers of human souls.

I believe in one thing only the power of human will.

It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.

If any foreign minister begins to defend to the death a 'peace conference ' you can be sure his government has already placed its orders for new battleships and airplanes.

Die, but do not retreat.

Gratitude is a sickness, suffered by dogs.

One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic.

The people who cast the votes do not decide an election, the people who count the votes do.

Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.

This creature softened my heart of stone. She died and with her died my last warm feelings for humanity.

It is not heroes that make history, but history that makes heroes.

History has shown there are no invincible armies.

I believe in only one thing, the power of human will.

It is difficult for me to imagine what "personal liberty" is enjoyed by an unemployed person, who goes about hungry, and cannot find employment. Real liberty can exist only where exploitation has been abolished, where there is no oppression of some by others, where there is no unemployment and poverty, where a man is not haunted by the fear of being tomorrow deprived of work, of home and of bread. Only in such a society is real, and not paper, personal and every other liberty possible.

You cannot make a revolution with silk gloves.

Gratitude is an illness suffered by dogs.

music's a good thing, it calm the beast in the man.

In the Soviet Union, it's takes more courage to retreat than advance.

The Pope! How many divisions has he got?

The only real power comes out of a long rifle.

redacted; spurious].

When the Bolsheviks came to power they were soft and easy with their enemies... we had begun by making a mistake. Leniency towards such a power was a crime against the working classes. That soon became apparent...

In the Soviet army it takes more courage to retreat than advance.

We don't let them have ideas. Why would we let them have guns?