Leon Trotsky Quotes

We ought to see clearly that the end does justify the means

If the ends don't justify the means, what does?

The end must justify the means.

We live in a world where everyone thinks they do the right thing, so they are entitled to do the wrong thing. So ends can justify the means.

I'm a Utilitarian, so I don't see the rule against lying as absolute; it's always subject to some overriding utility which may prevent its exercise.

If the end does not justify the means - what can?

A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified.

If the end does not justify the means, what does?

The problem with absolutist beliefs that they can get you into traps in which the ends justify the means.

The ideologue says “whatever is right works.” The pragmatist says “whatever works is right.”

I never think the ends justify the means.

The end doesn't justify anything, because all we ever live with is the means.

It's okay to lie as long as you reach a higher truth doing it.

It seems that if you put people on paper and move them through time, you cannot help but talk about ethics, because the ethical realm exists nowhere if not here: in the consequences of human actions as they unfold in time, and the multiple interpretive possibility of those actions.

Whoever places greater emphasis upon the product rather than the process, upon an all-sanctifying end rather than upon the means for achieving it, is opening the doors of anarchy

To say that corrupt means corrupt the ends is to believe in the immaculate conception of ends and principles.

There are times when the end justifies the means. But when you build an argument based on a whole series of such times, you may find that you've constructed an entire philosophy of evil." --Luke Skywalker

The ends justifies the means.

Does the end justify the means? That is possible. But what will justify the end? To that question, which historical thought leaves pending, rebellion replies: the means.

But the nature of the universe is such that ends can never justify means. On the contrary, the means always determine the end.

You can get away with anything as long as it works.

And don't tell me the end justifies the means because it doesn't. We never reach the end. All we ever get is means. That's what we live with.

If the end is right, it justifies the beans!

Revolting means for good ends make the ends of themselves revolting.

He uses common sense to judge not the intentions of an action but its consequences.