55 quotes
Everything will pass, and the world will perish, but the Ninth Symphony will remain.
To the Finland Station: A Study in the Writing and Acting of History (1940)
By striving to do the impossible, man has always achieved what is possible. Those who have cautiously done no more than they believed possible have never taken a single step forward.
The Explorers (1996)
Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie; and the workers want no lying.
The Red Association (1870)
Man becomes conscious of himself and his humanity only in society and only by the collective action of the whole society.
Man, Society, and Freedom (1871)
FREEDOM, the realization of freedom: who can deny that this is what today heads the agenda of history?
The Reaction in Germany (1842)
Even the most wretched individual of our present society could not exist and develop without the cumulative social efforts of countless generations.
The Philosophy of Bakunin (1953)
All people and all men are filled with a kind of premonition, and everyone whose vital organs are not paralyzed faces with shuddering expectation the approaching future which will utter the redeeming word.
The Reaction in Germany (1842)
The people should never be deceived, under any pretext or for any purpose.
Statism and Anarchy (1873)
When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called "the People's Stick."
Every state, like every theology, assumes man to be fundamentally bad and wicked.
Michael Bakunin (1937)
Oh, the air is sultry and pregnant with lightning.
And therefore we call to our deluded brothers: Repent, repent, the Kingdom of the Lord is at hand!
The Reaction in Germany (1842)
Let us therefore trust the eternal Spirit which destroys and annihilates only because it is the unfathomable and eternal source of all life. The passion for destruction is a creative passion, too!
The Reaction in Germany (1842)
If there is a devil in human history, that devil is the principle of command. It alone, sustained by the ignorance and stupidity of the masses, without which it could not exist, is the source of all the catastrophes, all the crimes, and all the infamies of history.
On the Program of the Alliance (1871)
No theory, no ready-made system, no book that has ever been written will save the world. I cleave to no system. I am a true seeker.
Michael Bakunin (1937)
We are convinced that freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice, and that Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality.
The Political Philosophy of Bakunin: Scientific Anarchism (1953)
A slave owner is not a man but a master. By denying the humanity of his slaves he also abrogates his own humanity.
All exercise of authority perverts, and submission to authority humiliates.
Michael Bakunin (1937)
We are convinced that liberty without socialism is privilege, injustice; and that socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality.
I hate Communism because it is the negation of liberty and because humanity is for me unthinkable without liberty.
Michael Bakunin (1937)
But it will scarcely be any easier on the people if the cudgel with which they are beaten is called the people's cudgel.
Statism and Anarchy (1873)