Joseph Stalin Quotes: 95 Quotes from the Captivating and Controversial Figure Who Shaped a Nation

Joseph Stalin: 95 quotes 171 likes

Famous Joseph Stalin Quotes

“A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.”

Joseph Stalin

Variants: One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is just a statistic.
A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.
When one dies, it is a tragedy. When a million die, it is a statistic.
In Портрет тирана (1981) (Portrait of a Tyrant), Soviet historian Anton Antonov-Ovseyenko attributes the following version to Stalin: "When one man dies it's a tragedy. When thousands die it's statistics." This is the alleged response of Stalin during the 1943 Tehran conference when Churchill objected to an early opening of a second front in France.
In her review "Mustering Most Memorable Quips" of Konstantin Dushenko's 1997 Dictionary of Modern Quotations (Словарь современных цитат: 4300 ходячих цитат и выражений ХХ века, их источники, авторы, датировка), Julia Solovyova states: "Russian historians have no record of the lines, 'Death of one man is a tragedy. Death of a million is a statistic,' commonly attributed by English-language dictionaries to Josef Stalin."
This quotation may originate from "Französischer Witz" (1925) by Kurt Tucholsky: "Darauf sagt ein Diplomat vom Quai d'Orsay: «Der Krieg? Ich kann das nicht so schrecklich finden! Der Tod eines Menschen: das ist eine Katastrophe. Hunderttausend Tote: das ist eine Statistik!»" ("To which a Quai d'Orsay diplomat replies: «The war? I can't find it so terrible! The death of one man: that is a catastrophe. One hundred thousand deaths: that is a statistic!»")
Another possible source or intermediary may be the concluding words of chapter 8 of the 1956 novel The Black Obelisk by Erich Maria Remarque: "Aber das ist wohl so, weil ein einzelner immer der Tod ist — und zwei Millionen immer nur eine Statistik." ("But probably the reason is that one dead man is death—and two million are only a statistic." 1958 Crest Book reprint)
Mary Soames (daughter of Churchill) claims to have overheard Stalin deliver a variant of the quote in immediate postwar Berlin (Remembrance Sunday Andrew Marr interview BBC 2011) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hP2tpw9XEw
See also Jean Rostand, Thoughts of a Biologist, 1939: "Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god."
In an interview given for the 1983 three-part documentary Der Prozeß by Norddeutscher Rundfunk on the Third Majdanek trial, Simon Wiesenthal attributes the quote to the unpublished auto-biography of Adolf Eichmann. According to Wiesenthal, Eichmann had been asked by another member of the Reich Main Security Office during WWII what they should answer would they be questioned after the war about the millions of dead Jews they were responsible for, to which Eichmann according to his own testimony had replied with the quote.
Misattributed
Variant: The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.

“Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?”

Joseph Stalin

Often attributed to Stalin, there is not a single source which show that Stalin said this at any given time. There is only one source outside the blogosphere which attributes the quote to Stalin, but does not provide any evidence for the attribution. That source is the book Quotations for Public Speakers : A Historical, Literary, and Political Anthology (2001), p. 121 by the former US senator Robert Torricelli.
Misattributed

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

Joseph Stalin

“When there's a person, there's a problem. When there's no person, there's no problem.”

Joseph Stalin

It is mistakenly attributed to Stalin: there is no evidence that he ever said or wrote something like that.

This phrase from the novel "Children of the Arbat" (1987) by Анатолий Наумович Рыбаков (1911 — 1998). As Stalin said about the execution of military experts in Tsaritsyn in 1918: "Death solves all problems. No person and no problem. " Later, in his «Роман-воспоминание» (1997), Рыбаков wrote that the phrase Stalin "possibly from someone heard, perhaps, he came up with." This was Stalin's principle. I just, it briefly formulated."

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

Joseph Stalin

“People who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.”

Joseph Stalin

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

Joseph Stalin Quotes about people

“We are not the kind of people who, when the word "anarchism" is mentioned, turn away contemptuously and say with a supercilious wave of the hand: "Why waste time on that, it's not worth talking about!"”

Joseph Stalin

Anarchism or Socialism (1906)
Context: We are not the kind of people who, when the word "anarchism" is mentioned, turn away contemptuously and say with a supercilious wave of the hand: "Why waste time on that, it's not worth talking about!" We think that such cheap "criticism" is undignified and useless.
Nor are we the kind of people who console themselves with the thought that the Anarchists "have no masses behind them and, therefore, are not so dangerous." It is not who has a larger or smaller "mass" following today, but the essence of the doctrine that matters. If the "doctrine" of the Anarchists expresses the truth, then it goes without saying that it will certainly hew a path for itself and will rally the masses around itself. If, however, it is unsound and built up on a false foundation, it will not last long and will remain suspended in mid-air. But the unsoundness of anarchism must be proved.
Some people believe that Marxism and anarchism are based on the same principles and that the disagreements between them concern only tactics, so that, in the opinion of these people, no distinction whatsoever can be drawn between these two trends.
This is a great mistake.
We believe that the Anarchists are real enemies of Marxism. Accordingly, we also hold that a real struggle must be waged against real enemies.

“The leaders come and go, but the people remain. Only the people are immortal”

Joseph Stalin

Address to the Reception of Directors and Stakhanovites of the Metal Industry and the Coal Mining Industry http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1937/10/29.htm (29 October 1937)
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews
Context: The confidence of the people in the worker-directors of the economy is a great thing, Comrades. The leaders come and go, but the people remain. Only the people are immortal, everything else is ephemeral. That is why it is necessary to appreciate the full value of the confidence of the people.

“Comrades, Red Army and Red Navy men, commanders and political instructors, men and women guerrillas! The whole world is looking to you as a force capable of destroying the brigand hordes of German invaders. The enslaved peoples of Europe under the yoke of the German invaders are looking to you as their liberators. A great mission of liberation has fallen to your lot. Be worthy of this mission! The war you are waging is a war of liberation, a just war.”

Joseph Stalin

Speech on the 24th Anniversary of the Revolution
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

“What would happen if capital succeeded in smashing the Republic of Soviets? There would set in an era of the blackest reaction in all the capitalist and colonial countries, the working class and the oppressed peoples would be seized by the throat, the positions of international communism would be lost.”

Joseph Stalin

Speech at The Seventh Enlarged Plenum of the E.C.C.I. (December 1926) http://marx2mao.com/Stalin/SEP26.html
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

“The theory of "defeating" opportunist elements by the ideological struggle within the Party, the theory of "overcoming" these elements within the confines of a single party, is a rotten and dangerous theory, which threatens to condemn the Party to paralysis and chronic infirmity, threatens to leave the Party a prey to opportunism, threatens to leave the proletariat without a revolutionary party, threatens to deprive the proletariat of its main weapon in the fight against imperialism. Our Party could not have emerged on to the broad highway, it could not have seized power and organised the dictatorship of the proletariat, it could not have emerged victorious from the civil war, if it had had within its ranks people like Martov and Dan, Potresov and Axelrod. Our Party succeeded in achieving internal unity and unexampled cohesion of its ranks primarily because it was able to in good time to purge itself of the opportunist pollution, because it was able to rid its ranks of the Liquidators and Mensheviks. Proletarian parties develop and become strong by purging themselves of opportunists and reformists, social-imperialists and social-chauvinists, social-patriots and social-pacifists.”

Joseph Stalin

Source: The Foundations of Leninism, Ch.8

“Hitlers come and go, but Germany and the German people remain.”

Joseph Stalin

"The Order #55 of the National Commissar for the Defense" (23 February 1942) http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1942/420223a.html Stalin said this when the enemy had reached the gate of Moscow during World War II. He called on the people not to identify all Germans with the Nazis.
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Joseph Stalin Quotes about time

“We are in favour of the withering away of the state, and at the same time we stand for the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which represents the most powerful and mighty of all forms of the state which have existed up to the present day. The highest development of the power of the state, with the object of preparing the conditions of the withering away of the state: that is the Marxist formula. Is it "contradictory"? Yes, it is "contradictory."”

Joseph Stalin

But this contradiction is a living thing and wholly reflects the Marxist dialectic.
Address to the 16th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (1930) Quoted in: Alfred B. Evans, Soviet Marxism-Leninism: The Decline of an Ideology pg. 39 https://books.google.com/books?id=ezGGPIze4ZYC&pg=PA39&dq=withering+away+of+the+state+stalin&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAWoVChMIz_WZ46adxwIVR5YeCh1g7AKD#v=onepage&q=withering%20away%20of%20the%20state%20stalin&f=false
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

“The mortal sin of the Second International was not that it pursued at that time the tactics of utilising parliamentary forms of struggle, but that it overestimated the importance of these forms, that it considered them virtually the only forms; and that when the period of open revolutionary battles set in and the question of extra-parliamentary forms of struggle came to the fore, the parties of the Second International turned their backs on these new tasks, refused to shoulder them.”

Joseph Stalin

Source: The Foundations of Leninism, Ch.7

“he Party is the highest form of organisation of the proletariat. The Party is the principle guiding force within the class of the proletarians and among the organisations of that class. But it does not by any means follow from this that the Party can be regarded as an end in itself, as a self-sufficient force. The Party is not only the highest form of class association of the proletarians; it is at the same time an instrument in the hands of the proletariatfor achieving the dictatorship, when that has not yet been achieved and for consolidating and expanding the dictatorship when it has already been achieved. The Party could not have risen so high in importance and could not have exerted its influence over all other forms of organisations of the proletariat, if the latter had not been confronted with the question of power, if the conditions of imperialism, the inevitability of wars, and the existence of a crisis had not yet demanded the concentration of all the forces of the proletariat at one point, the gathering of all the threads of the revolutionary movement in one spot in order to overthrow the bourgeoisie and to achieve the dictatorship of the proletariat. The proletariat needs the Party first of all as its General Staff, which it must have for the successful seizure of power. It scarcely needs proof that without a party capable of rallying around itself the mass organisations of the proletariat, and of centralising the leadership of the entire movement during the progress of the struggle, the proletariat in Russia could not have established its revolutionary dictatorship.”

Joseph Stalin

Source: The Problems of Leninism, Ch.8

“One of Ivan the Terrible's mistakes was to overlook the five great feudal families. If he had annihilated those five families, there would definitely have been no Time of Troubles. But Ivan the Terrible would execute someone and then spend a long time repenting and praying. God got in his way in this matter. He ought to have been still more decisive!”

Joseph Stalin

Moskovskie novosti, no. 32, 7 August 1988
Contemporary witnesses

“This leads to the conclusion, it is time to finish retreating. Not one step back! Such should now be our main slogan. … Henceforth the solid law of discipline for each commander, Red Army soldier, and commissar should be the requirement — not a single step back without order from higher command.”

Joseph Stalin

"The Order of the National Commissar for the Defense of the Soviet Union" (28 July 1942) Moscow http://www.stalingrad-info.com/order227.htm
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

“The strength of Soviet patriotism lies in the fact that it is based not on racial or nationalistic prejudices, but on the peoples’ profound loyalty and devotion to their Soviet Motherland, on the fraternal partnership of the working people of all the nationalities in our country. Soviet patriotism harmoniously combines the national traditions of the peoples and the common vital interests of all the working people of the Soviet Union. Far from dividing them, Soviet patriotism welds all the nations and peoples of our country into a single fraternal family. This should be regarded as the basis of the inviolable friendship of the peoples of the Soviet Union which is growing ever stronger. At the same time the peoples of the U.S.S.R. respect the rights and independence of the peoples of foreign countries and have always shown themselves willing to live in peace and friendship with neighbouring states.”

Joseph Stalin

Speech at Celebration Meeting of the Moscow Soviet of Working People’s Deputies and Moscow Party and Public Organizations https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1944/11/06.htm (6 November 1944)
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Joseph Stalin: Trending quotes

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

Joseph Stalin

At the funeral of his first wife, Kato Svanidze, on 25 November 1907, as quoted in Young Stalin (2007) by Simon Sebag Montefiore, p. 193
Contemporary witnesses

Feeling , Heart

“History shows that there are no invincible armies and that there never have been.”

Joseph Stalin

Radio Address https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1941/07/03.htm (3 July 1941)
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

History

“If you are afraid of wolves, keep out of the woods.”

Joseph Stalin

On the Draft Constitution of the U.S.S.R. https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1936/11/25.htm, 25 November 1936.
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Joseph Stalin Quotes

“Take some exercise, try to recover the look of a human being.”

Joseph Stalin

Exercises

“We will hang the capitalists with the rope that they sell us.”

Joseph Stalin

Often attributed to Stalin and Marx, according to the book, They Never Said It (1989), p. 64, the phrase derives from a rumour that Lenin said this to one of his close associates, Grigori Zinoviev, not long after a meeting of the Politburo in the early 1920s, but there is no evidence that he ever did. It has also been believed that Lenin may have expressed that the profit motive cannot be undone in that "If we were to hang the last capitalist, another would suddenly appear to sell us the rope". Experts on the Soviet Union reject the rope quote as spurious. However, it is established that Lenin did remark on the same underlying theme (even if not in reference to rope), namely, that capitalists in their addiction to high profits could not help themselves from selling things to a socialist state, even if it was against their own long-term interests by strengthening an enemy; Edvard Radzinsky covers it in his discussion of Lenin's comments on the "deaf-mutes" in Radzinsky's biography of Stalin.
Misattributed

“What guarantee is there that the fascist literary politicians in Berlin will be more fortunate than the old and experienced conquerors in Rome? Would it not be more correct to assume that the opposite will be the case?”

Joseph Stalin

Report to the Seventeenth Party Congress on the Work of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U. (B.) https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1934/01/26.htm (January 26, 1934)
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews
Context: Still others think that war should be organised by a "superior race," say, the German "race," against an "inferior race," primarily against the Slavs; that only such a war can provide a way out of the situation, for it is the mission of the "superior race" to render the "inferior race" fruitful and to rule over it. Let us assume that this queer theory, which is as far removed from science as the sky from the earth, let us assume that this queer theory is put into practice. What may be the result of that? It is well known that ancient Rome looked upon the ancestors of the present-day Germans and French in the same way as the representatives of the "superior race" now look upon the Slav races. It is well known that ancient Rome treated them as an "inferior race," as "barbarians," destined to live in eternal subordination to the "superior race," to "great Rome", and, between ourselves be it said, ancient Rome had some grounds for this, which cannot be said of the representatives of the "superior race" of today. (Thunderous applause.) But what was the upshot of this? The upshot was that the non-Romans, i. e., all the "barbarians," united against the common enemy and brought Rome down with a crash. The question arises: What guarantee is there that the claims of the representatives of the "superior race" of today will not lead to the same lamentable results? What guarantee is there that the fascist literary politicians in Berlin will be more fortunate than the old and experienced conquerors in Rome? Would it not be more correct to assume that the opposite will be the case?

“This is a great mistake.
We believe that the Anarchists are real enemies of Marxism.”

Joseph Stalin

“I'm finished. I trust no one, not even myself.”

Joseph Stalin

Remark to Nikita Khrushchev and Anastas Mikoyan as quoted in "Khrushchev: Notes from a Forbidden Land", http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,904531-4,00.html Time, 30 November 1970, citing the publication of an installment of Khrushchev's reminiscences in Life that week.
Contemporary witnesses

“It is not who has a larger or smaller "mass" following today, but the essence of the doctrine that matters.”

Joseph Stalin

“Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.”

Joseph Stalin

Interview http://www.rationalrevolution.net/special/library/cc835_44.htm with H. G. Wells (September 1937)
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Education , Dependency

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

Joseph Stalin

Music

“It is well known that ancient Rome looked upon the ancestors of the present-day Germans and French in the same way as the representatives of the "superior race" now look upon the Slav races. It is well known that ancient Rome treated them as an "inferior race," as "barbarians," destined to live in eternal subordination to the "superior race," to "great Rome", and, between ourselves be it said, ancient Rome had some grounds for this, which cannot be said of the representatives of the "superior race" of today.”

Joseph Stalin

Way

“As we know, the goal of every struggle is victory. But if the proletariat is to achieve victory, all the workers, irrespective of nationality, must be united. Clearly, the demolition of national barriers and close unity between the Russian, Georgian, Armenian, Polish, Jewish and other proletarians is a necessary condition for the victory of the proletariat of all Russia.”

Joseph Stalin

from "The Social-Democratic View of the National Question", 1904 (aged 26) http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1904/09/01.htm
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Victory

“I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this—who will count the votes, and how.”

Joseph Stalin

In Russian: Я считаю, что совершенно неважно, кто и как будет в партии голосовать; но вот что чрезвычайно важно, это - кто и как будет считать голоса.
Said in 1923, as quoted in The Memoirs of Stalin's Former Secretary http://www.panrus.com/books/details.php?langID=1&bookID=5905 (1992) by Boris Bazhanov [Saint Petersburg] (Борис Бажанов. Воспоминания бывшего секретаря Сталина). (Text online in Russian) http://lib.ru/MEMUARY/BAZHANOW/stalin.txt.
Variant (loose) translation: The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.
Contemporary witnesses

“A sincere diplomat is like dry water or wooden iron.”

Joseph Stalin

Speech "The Elections in St. Petersburg" (January 1913) http://marx2mao.com/Stalin/ESP13.html
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Water , Sincerity

“We refer to the language difficulty.”

Joseph Stalin

from "From (the) Editors" (1901) an article in a socialist newspaper-- Stalin was one of the editors (aged 22) http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1901/09/x01.htm#*
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews
Context: From the point of view of the onlooker, the question of the existence of a Georgian newspaper in general, and the question of its content and trend in particular, may seem to settle themselves naturally and simply: the Georgian Social-Democratic movement is not a separate, exclusively Georgian, working-class movement with its own separate programme; it goes hand in hand with the entire Russian movement and, consequently, accepts the authority of the Russian Social-Democratic Party—hence it is clear that a Georgian Social-Democratic newspaper should be only a local organ that deals mainly with local questions and reflects the local movement. But behind this reply lurks a difficulty which we cannot ignore and which we shall inevitably encounter. We refer to the language difficulty. While the Central Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Party is able to explain all general questions with the aid of the all-Party newspaper and leave it to the regional committees to deal only with local questions, the Georgian newspaper finds itself in a difficulty as regards content. The Georgian newspaper must simultaneously play the part of an all-Party and of a regional, or local organ. As the majority of Georgian working-class readers cannot freely read the Russian newspaper, the editors of the Georgian newspaper have no right to pass over those questions which the all-Party Russian newspaper is discussing, and should discuss. Thus, the Georgian newspaper must inform its readers about all questions of principle concerning theory and tactics. At the same time it must lead the local movement and throw proper light on every event, without leaving a single fact unexplained, and providing answers to all questions that excite the local workers. The Georgian newspaper must link up and unite the Georgian and Russian militant workers The newspaper must inform its readers about everything that interests them at home, in Russia and abroad.

“We think that a powerful and vigorous movement is impossible without differences — "true conformity" is possible only in the cemetery.”

Joseph Stalin

Stalin's article "Our purposes" Pravda #1, (22 January 1912)
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Thinking

“Hence, Communists, as consistent internationalists, cannot but be irreconcilable and bitter enemies of anti-Semitism.”

Joseph Stalin

"Anti-Semitism: Reply to an inquiry of the Jewish News Agency in the United States" (12 January 1931)
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews
Context: National and racial chauvinism is a vestige of the misanthropic customs characteristic of the period of cannibalism. Anti-Semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism. Anti-semitism is of advantage to the exploiters as a lightning conductor that deflects the blows aimed by the working people at capitalism. Anti-Semitism is dangerous for the toilers, for it is a false track which diverts them from the proper road and leads them into the jungle. Hence, Communists, as consistent internationalists, cannot but be irreconcilable and bitter enemies of anti-Semitism. In the U. S. S. R., anti-Semitism is strictly prosecuted as a phenomenon hostile to the Soviet system. According to the laws of the U. S. S. R. active anti-Semites are punished with death.

“Our Red Army now needs IL-2 aircraft like the air it breathes, like the bread it eats.”

Joseph Stalin

Telegram to government aviation production plant superintendents by Stalin in the autumn of 1941, warning them to produce more Il-2 Sturmovik ground attack aircraft for national defense.

Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews
Context: You have let down our country and our Red Army. You have the nerve not to manufacture IL-2s until now. Our Red Army now needs IL-2 aircraft like the air it breathes, like the bread it eats. Shenkman produces one IL-2 a day and Tretyakov builds one or two MiG-3s daily. It is a mockery of our country and the Red Army. I ask you not to try the government's patience, and demand that you manufacture more ILs. This is my final warning.

“This war is not as in the past; whoever occupies a territory also imposes on it his own social system. Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach.”

Joseph Stalin

Said in April, 1945, as quoted in Conversations with Stalin (1963) by Milovan Djilas
Contemporary witnesses
Context: This war is not as in the past; whoever occupies a territory also imposes on it his own social system. Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach. It cannot be otherwise. If now there is not a communist government in Paris, this is only because Russia has no an army which can reach Paris in 1945.

War , Past

“Don’t expect a reply from Mr. Churchill. Mr. Churchill does not understand in what a ridiculous position he puts himself by his outcry about “totalitarianism, tyranny and police rule.”

Joseph Stalin

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1946/03/x01.htmInterview to “Pravda” Correspondent Concerning Mr. Winston Churchill’s Speech at Fulton; March, 1946
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews
Context: As is known, the Government of the State in Britain at the present time is in the hands of one party, the Labour Party, and the opposition parties are deprived of the right to participate in the Government of Britain. That Mr. Churchill calls true democracy. Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Hungary are administered by blocs of several parties—from four to six parties—and the opposition, if it is more or less loyal, is secured the right of participation in the Government. That Mr. Churchill describes as totalitarianism, tyranny and police rule. Why? On what grounds? Don’t expect a reply from Mr. Churchill. Mr. Churchill does not understand in what a ridiculous position he puts himself by his outcry about “totalitarianism, tyranny and police rule.

Understanding

“Death solves all problems — no man, no problem.”

Joseph Stalin

This actually comes from the novel Children of the Arbat (1987) by Anatoly Rybakov. In his later book The Novel of Memories ( In Russian http://www.sakharov-center.ru/asfcd/auth/auth_pages.xtmpl?Key=18637&page=307) Rybakov admitted that he had no sources for such a statement.
Misattributed

Death , Problem

“Gratitude is a sickness suffered by dogs.”

Joseph Stalin

As quoted in The Memoirs of Stalin's former secretary (1992) by Boris Bazhanov [Saint Petersburg] (in Russian) http://lib.ru/MEMUARY/BAZHANOW/stalin.txt
Contemporary witnesses

Dogs , Suffering , Gratitude

“Quantity has a quality all its own.”

Joseph Stalin

No evidence that this phrasing is due to Stalin, and it does not appear in English translations of his philosphical works. Earliest English is found in 1979 in US defense industry, presumably defense consultant Thomas A. Callaghan Jr. The connection of sufficient quantitative change leading to qualitative change is found in Marxist philosophy, by Marx and Engels, drawing from Hegelian philosophy and Ancient Greek philosophy. Marx and Engels are quoted by Stalin, but this formulation appears to be a modern American form; see quantity for details.
Stalin may have said that way before World War II, there is evidence in his Russian-language books, for example here http://www.modernlib.ru/books/stalin_iosif_vissarionovich/tom_14/read_16/.
Misattributed
Variant: Quantity is quality.
Source: Re: "Quantity has a quality all its own" source? http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-russia&month=1004&week=a&msg=ljEwsM4dMrpmUGVfI7EGqg, Tim Davenport, h-russia https://networks.h-net.org/h-russia, April 5, 2010

“[redacted; spurious].”

Joseph Stalin

“You cannot make a revolution with silk gloves.”

Joseph Stalin

"omlets are not made without breaking eggs" first appeared in English in 1796. It is from the French, "on ne saurait faire d'omelette sans casser des œufs" (1742 and earlier), attributed to François de Charette.
In the context of the Soviet Union, Time magazine http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,753448-2,00.html attributes it to Lazar Kaganovich.
Walter Duranty associated with Stalin in the New York Times.
"But – to put it brutally – you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, and the Bolshevist leaders are just as indifferent to the casualties that may be involved in their drive toward socialization as any General during the World War who ordered a costly attack in order to show his superiors that he and his division possessed the proper soldierly spirit. In fact, the Bolsheviki are more indifferent because they are animated by fanatical conviction."
Walter Duranty, Special Cable to The New York Times http://www.artukraine.com/old/famineart/duranty.htm, The New York Times, New York, March 31, 1933, page 13.
Misattributed
Variant: You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.

“Social democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism”

Joseph Stalin

“Concerning the International Situation,” Works, Vol. 6, January-November, 1924, pp. 293-314.
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews
Context: Social democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism.... These organisations (ie Fascism and social democracy) are not antipodes, they are twins.

Democracy

“So the bastard's dead? Too bad we didn't capture him alive!”

Joseph Stalin

Said in April 1945 — On hearing of Hitler's suicide, as quoted in The Memoirs of Georgy Zhukov http://militera.lib.ru/memo/russian/zhukov1/22.html
Contemporary witnesses

Dead

“I know that the gentlemen in the enemy camp may think of me however they like. I consider it beneath me to try to change the minds of these gentlemen.”

Joseph Stalin

Omitted portion of an interview between Stalin and Emil Ludwig (13 December 1931) http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/research/stalinludwig_missing_eng.html
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Thinking , Change

“It is impossible to finish off capitalism without having finished off social democracy in the working-class movement.”

Joseph Stalin

Voprosi Leninizma, Gosudarstvennoe izdatelstvo politicheskoy literaturi, (1939)
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Democracy

“Ours is a just cause; victory will be ours!”

Joseph Stalin

In Russian: Наше дело правое — победа будет за нами!
Speech at celebration meeting (6 November 1941). However, Stalin was quoting Vyacheslav Molotov's speech to the Soviet people of June 22, 1941. A facsimile of the draft of this speech is reprinted in the Russian journal _Istoricheskii Arkhiv_ No. 2, 1995, pp. 35-37. This quotation, in Molotov's handwriting, is on p. 37 of that issue. http://marx2mao.com/Stalin/GPW46.html#s2
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Victory

“If the opposition disarms, all is well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves.”

Joseph Stalin

The Political Report of the Central Committee, The Fifteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B.) (7 December 1927) http://marx2mao.com/Stalin/FC27.html#s5iii
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

“The Party must be, first of all, the advanced detachment of the working class. The Party must absorb all the best elements of the working class, their experience, their revolutionary spirit, their selfless devotion to the cause of the proletariat. But in order that it may really be the armed detachment, the Party must be armed with revolutionary theory, with a knowledge of the laws of the movement, with a knowledge of the laws of revolution. Without this it will be incapable of directing the struggle of the proletariat, of leading the proletariat.”

Joseph Stalin

The Foundations of Leninism

Law , Knowledge

“The idea of a concentration camp is excellent.”

Joseph Stalin

On ideas of eradicating 'counter-revolutionaries and traitors' in Estonia, as quoted in Stalin : A Biography (2004) by Robert Service, p. 158; also in Bol'shevistskoe rukovodstvo. Perepiska, 1912-1927, p. 36.
Contemporary witnesses

Idea

“If, against all expectation, Germany finds itself in a difficult situation then she can be sure that the Soviet people will come to Germany's aid and will not allow Germany to be strangled. The Soviet Union wants to see a strong Germany and we will not allow Germany to be thrown to the ground.”

Joseph Stalin

Statement in September 1939, as quoted in "Stalin's pact with Hitler" in WWII Behind Closed Doors at PBS http://www.pbs.org/behindcloseddoors/episode-1/ep1_stalins_pact.html
Contemporary witnesses

People , Strong

“Until the bourgeoisie is completely vanquished, until its wealth has been confiscated, the proletariat must without fail possess a military force, it must without fail have its "proletarian guard," with the aid of which it will repel the counter-revolutionary attacks of the dying bourgeoisie, exactly as the Paris proletariat did during the Commune.”

Joseph Stalin

Anarchism or Socialism (1906)

Communication , Wealth

“The State is a machine in the hands of the ruling class for suppressing the resistance of its class enemies. in this respect the dictatorship of the proletariat does not differ essentially from dictatorship of any other class, for the proletarian State is a machine for the suppression of the bourgeoisie.”

Joseph Stalin

The Problems of Leninism

“We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they will crush us.”

Joseph Stalin

Speech "The Tasks of Economic Executives" (4 February 1931) http://marx2mao.com/Stalin/TEE31.html Stalin said this in 1931, at the beginning of the rapid industrialization campaign. Ten years later, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union.
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Country

“You [Albanians] are a separate people, just like the Persians and the Arabs, who have the same religion as the Turks. Your ancestors existed before the Romans and the Turks. Religion has nothing to do with nationality and statehood… the question of religious beliefs must be kept well in mind, must be handled with great care, because the religious feelings of the people must not be offended. These feelings have been cultivated in the people for many centuries, and great patience is called for on this question, because the stand towards it is important for the compactness and unity of the people.”

Joseph Stalin

Said to Enver Hoxha, on their second meeting together in March-April 1949, as quoted in Hoxha's (1986) The Artful Albanian, (Chatto & Windus, London), ISBN 0701129700
Contemporary witnesses

People , Religion , Feeling , Question

“The principle of the minority submitting to the majority, the principle of directing Party work from a centre, not infrequently gives rise to attacks on the part of wavering elements, to accusations of "bureaucracy," "formalism," etc. It scarcely needs proof that systematic work by the Party as one whole, and the directing of the struggle of the working class, would be impossible without putting these principles into effect. Leninism in questions of organisation is the unswerving application of these applications of these principles.”

Joseph Stalin

Source: The Foundations of Leninism, Ch.8

Question , Parting

“True courage consists in being strong enough to master and overcome oneself and subordinate one’s will to the will of the collective, the will of the higher party body.”

Joseph Stalin

Quoted in The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom, Arthur M. Schesinger, New Brunswick: NJ, Transaction Publishers (1998) p. 56. First printed in 1949. Second Speech Delivered at the Presidium of the ECCI on the American Question (May 14, 1929)
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Courage , Strong

“The writer is the engineer of the human soul.”

Joseph Stalin

Said by Stalin at a meeting of fifty top Soviet writers at Maxim Gorky's house in Moscow (26 October 1932), as quoted in Simon Sebag Montefiore's Stalin: the Court of the Red Tsar, p. 85, and Edvard Radzinsky's Stalin, pp. 259-63. Primary source: K. Zelinsky's contemporary record of the event. It was published in English in Stalin and the Literary Intelligentsia,. (1991) by А. Kemp-Welch, Basingstoke and London, pp. 12-31.
Contemporary witnesses

Soul

“Does Djilas, who is himself a writer, not know what human suffering and the human heart are? Can't he understand it if a soldier who has crossed thousands of kilometers through blood and fire and death has fun with a wench or takes some trifle?”

Joseph Stalin

In response to complaints about the rapes and looting committed by the Red Army during the Second World War, as quoted in Conversations with Stalin (1963) by Milovan Djilas, p. 95
Contemporary witnesses

Death , Understanding , Suffering , Heart

“He can't even shoot straight.”

Joseph Stalin

On his son Yakov’s suicide attempt, as quoted in Encyclopedia of Useless Information (2007) by William Harston
Contemporary witnesses

“The existing pseudo-government which was not elected by the people and which is not accountable to the people must be replaced by a government recognised by the people, elected by representatives of the workers, soldiers and peasants and held accountable to their representatives.”

Joseph Stalin

"What We Need", editorial published (24 October 1917), as quoted in Stalin : A Biography (2004) by Robert Service; also in Sochineniya, Vol. 3, p. 389
Variant translation:
The present imposter government, which was not elected by the people and which is not accountable to the people, must be replaced by a government recognized by the people, elected by representatives of the workers, soldiers and peasants, and held accountable to their representatives
As quoted in The Bolsheviks Come to Power : The Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd (2004) by Alexander Rabinowitch, p. 252
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

People

“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 aeroplanes.”

Joseph Stalin

Speech "The Elections in St. Petersburg" (January 1913) http://marx2mao.com/Stalin/ESP13.html
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Death , Peace

“Nationalist in form; socialist in context.”

Joseph Stalin

"Language Policy in the Soviet Union", Lenore A. Grenoble, New York: NY, Kluwer Academic Publishers (2003) p. 41.
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

“The State is a machine in the hands of the governing class for suppressing the resistance of its class antagonists. In this way the dictatorship of the proletariat differs in no way essentially from the dictatorship of any other class.”

Joseph Stalin

Voprosi Leninizma, Gosudarstvennoe izdatelstvo politicheskoy literaturi, (1939)
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Way

“Mankind is divided into rich and poor, into property owners and exploited; and to abstract oneself from this fundamental division, and from the antagonism between poor and rich, means abstracting oneself from fundamental facts.”

Joseph Stalin

Interview http://www.rationalrevolution.net/special/library/cc835_44.htm with H. G. Wells (September 1937)
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews
Variant: Which means Mankind is divided into rich and poor, into property owners and exploited; and to abstract oneself from this fundamental division; and from the antagonism between poor and rich means abstracting oneself from fundamental facts.

“We disagreed with Zinoviev and Kamenev because we knew that the policy of amputation was fraught with great dangers for the Party, that the method of amputation, the method of blood-letting — and they demanded blood — was dangerous, infectious: today you amputate one limb, tomorrow another, the day after tomorrow a third — what will we have left in the Party?”

Joseph Stalin

Speech at The Fourteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B.) (December 1925) http://marx2mao.com/Stalin/FC25.html
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

“The press must grow day in and day out — it is our Party's sharpest and most powerful weapon.”

Joseph Stalin

Speech at The Twelfth Congress of the R.C.P.(B.) (19 April 1923) http://marx2mao.com/Stalin/TC23.html#s2
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

“Is it possible, then, to doubt that we can and must gain victory over the German invaders? The enemy is not as strong as some terror-stricken pseudo-intellectuals picture him. The devil is not as terrible as he is painted.”

Joseph Stalin

Speech on the 24th Anniversary of the Revolution http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IGbjPqFFvA (7 November 1941)
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Strong , Victory , Painting

“God's not unjust, he doesn't actually exist. We've been deceived. If God existed, he'd have made the world more just… I'll lend you a book and you'll see.”

Joseph Stalin

A teenaged Stalin after reading The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin as quoted in Young Stalin (2007) by Simon Sebag Montefiore, p. 49
Contemporary witnesses

God , Books , World