Rosa Luxemburg was a Marxist philosopher, revolutionary socialist, and anti-war activist.
Her parents raised her in Germany even though she was born in Poland. In Warsaw, she attended an all-girls gymnasium secondary school.
Although Luxemburg did not view spontaneity as an abstract concept, she was influenced by mass strikes in Europe. She continued to harbor sentiments for Polish culture.
The exploitation of the working class against Bourgeois class dominance is unquestionably a historical necessity. History has required both capital and its tomb digger, the socialist proletariat.
She said, “The war dismantles the appearance that makes us believe in peaceful social evolution, in the untouchability and omnipotence of bourgeois legality, in national exclusivism, in the stability of political conditions, in the conscious deliberate of politics by these 'statesmen' or parties, and in parliamentary as the purported center of social existence.”
Famous Rosa Luxemburg Quotes
Here are some of the famous quotes told by Rosa Luxemburg.
"I know thy works, that thou are neither cold nor hot; I would that thou were cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth."
"I want to burden the conscience of the affluent with all the suffering and all the hidden, bitter tears."
"I feel at home in the entire world, wherever there are clouds and birds and human tears"
- ‘The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg’
"People for the most part pass by the loveliest things in life without paying attention."
- ‘The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg’
"We have to take everything as it comes and to find beauty in everything. That's what I manage to do."
"We will be victorious if we have not forgotten how to learn."
Rosa Luxemburg Quotes On Feminism
Here is a list of Rosa Luxemburg quotes on feminism.
"Women's freedom is the sign of social freedom."
"I want to affect people like a clap of thunder, to inflame their minds with the breadth of my vision, the strength of my conviction, and the power of my expression."
"Why are there no organizations for women workers in Germany? Why is so little heard of the women workers’ movement?"
Rosa Luxemburg Quotes On Socialism
Here is a list of Rosa Luxemburg quotes on socialism
(Adam Mickiewicz was her favorite poet.)
"There is no democracy without socialism, and no socialism without democracy."
"Socialism does not mean getting together in a parliament and passing laws, socialism means for us overthrowing the ruling classes with all the brutality that the proletariat is capable of deploying in its struggle."
"Those who do not move, do not notice their chains."
"Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism."
"The masses are in reality their own leaders, dialectically creating their own development process."
"The masses are the rock on which the ultimate victory of the revolution will be built. The masses were up to the challenge, and out of this "defeat' they have forged a link in the chain of historic defeats, which is the pride and strength of international socialism."
"Credit reproduces all the fundamental antagonisms of the capitalist world. It accentuates them. It precipitates their development and thus pushes the capitalist world forward to its own destruction."
“I want to affect people like a clap of thunder, to inflame their minds with the breadth of my vision, the strength of my conviction, and the power of my expression.”
"Democracy is indispensable, not because it renders superfluous the conquest of political power by the proletariat, but, on the contrary, because it makes this seizure of power both necessary and possible."
“Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.”
"Only through the conscious action of the working masses in city and country can it be brought to life, only through the people's highest intellectual maturity and inexhaustible idealism can it be brought safely through all storms and find its way to the port."
"Without general elections, without freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, without the free battle of opinions, life in every public institution withers away, becomes a caricature of itself, and bureaucracy rises as the only deciding factor."
"Social democracy seeks and finds the ways, and particular slogans, of the workers' struggle only in the course of the development of this struggle, and gains directions for the way forward through this struggle alone."
"The war completely rends all the veils which the bourgeois world – this world of economic, political and social fetishism – constantly wraps us in."
"Let us speak plainly. Historically, the errors committed by a truly revolutionary movement are infinitely more fruitful than the infallibility of the cleverest Central Committee."
- ‘Leninism or Marxism? Organizational Questions of the Russian Social Democracy’
"Being human means throwing your whole life on the scales of destiny when need be, all the while rejoicing in every sunny day and every beautiful cloud."
"In the army, capitalist development leads to the extension of obligatory military service to the reduction of the time of service and consequently to a material approach to a popular militia."
"What presents itself to us as bourgeois legality is nothing but the violence of the ruling class, violence raised to an obligatory norm from the outset."
"Without general elections, without unrestricted freedom of the press and assembly, and without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every public institution, becomes a mere semblance of life, in which only the bureaucracy remains as the active element."
"Freedom is always the freedom of the dissenter"
- ‘Rosa Luxemburg Die Russische Revolution’
"Only to the rude ear of one who is quite indifferent does the song of a bird seem always the same."
"A world must be overturned, but every tear that flows is an accusation, and every man rushing to do something important who treads even on a worm through pure carelessness is committing a crime."
- during the First World War
"At the present stage of development of the world market and of the world economy, the conception of Europe as an isolated economic unit is a sterile concoction of the brain."
"Though foreign loans are indispensable for the emancipation of the rising capitalist states, they are yet the surest ties by which the old capitalist states maintain their influence, exercise financial control, and exert pressure on the customs, foreign and commercial policy of the young capitalist states."
"The working class will acquire the sense of the new discipline, the freely assumed self-discipline of the Social Democracy, not as a result of the discipline imposed on it by the capitalist state, but by extirpating, to the last root, its old habits of obedience and servility."
- ‘Rosa Luxemburg Organizational Questions of the Russian Social Democracy’
"Freedom only for the members of the government, only for the members of the Party - though they are quite numerous - is no freedom at all."
"The masses were on the heights; they have developed this ‘defeat' into one of the historical defeats which are the pride and strength of international socialism. And that is why the future victory will bloom from this ‘defeat'."
Rosa Luxemburg Quotes On Revolution
Here is a list of Rosa Luxemburg quotes on Revolution.
"Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of "justice", but because all that is instructive, wholesome, and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when "freedom" becomes a special privilege."
"Before a revolution happens, it is perceived as impossible; after it happens, it is seen as having been inevitable."
"Work for legal reform takes place only within the framework of the social form created by the last revolution."
"The most revolutionary thing one can do is always to proclaim loudly what is happening."
- ‘The Rosa Luxemburg Reader’
"Tomorrow the revolution will 'rise up again, clashing its weapons,' and to your horror, it will proclaim with trumpets blazing: I was, I am, I shall be!"
"The times when the centre of gravity of political development and the crystallizing agent of capitalist contradictions lay on the European continent are long gone. Today, Europe is only a link in the tangled chain of international connections and contradictions."
"Under the leaden sway of Alexander III's government, the silence of the graveyard prevailed. Russian society, equally discouraged by the collapse of all hopes for peaceful reforms and by the apparent ineffectiveness of the revolutionary movement, was in the grip of a mood of depression and resignation."
"The existing legal constitution is nothing but the product of a revolution. Revolution is the act of political creation in the history of classes, while constitutional legislation is the expression of the continual political vegetation of a society."
"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."
- ‘Reform or Revolution’
"Democracy is indispensable to the working class, because only through the exercise of its democratic rights, in the struggle for democracy, can the proletariat become aware of its class interests and its historic task."
- ‘Reform or Revolution’
"The masses are the decisive element, they are the rock on which the final victory of the revolution will be built."
"The very action of the proletariat is a determining factor in history. And although we can no more jump over the stages of historical development than a man can jump over his shadow, nevertheless, we can accelerate or retard that development."
"Life is singing also in the sand crunching under the slow and heavy steps of the guards, when we know how to listen to it."
"Clearly, not uncritical apologetics but penetrating and thoughtful criticism is alone capable of bringing out the treasures of experiences and teachings."
- ‘The Russian Revolution’
"Decree, dictatorial force of the factory overseer, draconian penalties, rule by terror – all these things are but palliatives. The only way to a rebirth is the school of public life itself, the most unlimited, the broadest democracy and public opinion. It is ruled by terror which demoralizes."
- ‘The Problem with Dictatorship’, chapter 6
"Marxism is a revolutionary worldview that must always struggle for new revelations."
"History is the only true teacher, the revolution the best school for the proletariat."
"Only the hammer blow of revolution, that is to say, the conquest of political power by the proletariat can break down wall."
- ‘Reform or Revolution’
"Between social reforms and revolution there exists for the Social Democracy an indissoluble tie. The struggle for reforms is its means; the social revolution, its aim."
- ‘Reform or Revolution’
"The modern proletarian class doesn't carry out its struggle according to a plan set out in some book or theory; the modern workers' struggle is a part of history, a part of social progress, and in the middle of history, in the middle of progress, in the middle of the fight, we learn how we must fight."
- ‘The Mass Strike’
