55 quotes
At the present time a serious, strong state can have but one sound foundation — military and bureaucratic centralization.
Statism and Anarchy (1873)
All religions, with their gods, demigods, prophets, messiahs and saints, are the product of the fancy and credulity of men who have not yet reached the full development and complete possession of their intellectual powers.
God and the State (1871)
What all other men are is of the greatest importance to me. However independent I may imagine myself to be, however far removed I may appear from mundane considerations by my social status, I am enslaved to the misery of the meanest member of society.
Solidarity in Liberty: The Workers' Path to Freedom (1867)
I detest communism, because it is the negation of liberty and because I can conceive nothing human without liberty.
Revolution requires extensive and widespread destruction, a fecund and renovating destruction, since in this way and only this way are new worlds born
Statism and Anarchy (1873)
Do not believe, Gentlemen, that I recoil before the frank explanation of my socialist ideas.
Freedom is the absolute right of every human being to seek no other sanction for his actions but his own conscience, to determine these actions solely by his own will, and consequently to owe his first responsibility to himself alone.
Everywhere, especially in France and England, social and religious societies are being formed which are wholly alien to the world of present-day politics, societies that derive their life from new sources quite unknown to us and that grow and diffuse themselves without fanfare.
The Reaction in Germany (1842)
This flagrant negation of humanity which constitutes the very essence of the State is, from the standpoint of the State, its supreme duty and its greatest virtue.
Rousseau's Theory of the State (1873)
Nothing, in fact, is as universal or as ancient as the iniquitous and absurd; truth and justice, on the contrary, are the least universal, the youngest features in the development of human society.
God and the State (1871)
The peoples' revolution .... will arrange its revolutionary organisation from the bottom up and from the periphery to the centre, in keeping with the principle of liberty.
Program and Object of the Secret Revolutionary Organisation of the International Brotherhood (1868)
If there is a state, then necessarily there is domination and consequently slavery. A state without slavery, open or camouflaged, is inconceivable — that is why we are enemies of the state.
Statism and Anarchy (1873)
A jealous lover of human liberty, deeming it the absolute condition of all that we admire and respect in humanity, I reverse the phrase of Voltaire, and say that, if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him.
God and the State (1871)
A person is strong only when he stands upon his own truth, when he speaks and acts from his deepest convictions. Then, whatever the situation he may be in, he always knows what he must say and do. He may fall, but he cannot bring shame upon himself or his cause.
Statism and Anarchy (1873)
The liberty of man consists solely in this: that he obeys natural laws because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been externally imposed upon him by any extrinsic will whatever, divine or human, collective or individual.
God and the State (1871)
The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth.
Man, Society, and Freedom (1871)
To revolt is a natural tendency of life. Even a worm turns against the foot that crushes it. In general, the vitality and relative dignity of an animal can be measured by the intensity of its instinct to revolt.
On the International Workingmen's Association and Karl Marx (1872)
It is the peculiarity of privilege and of every privileged position to kill the intellect and heart of man. The privileged man, whether he be privileged politically or economically, is a man depraved in intellect and heart.
There can be no revolution without widespread and passionate destruction, a destruction salutary and fruitful precisely because out of it, and by means of it alone, new worlds are born and arise.
Statism and Anarchy (1873)
The liberty of every individual is only the reflection of his own humanity, or his human right through the conscience of all free men, his brothers and his equals.
I can feel free only in the presence of and in relationship with other men.
Man, Society, and Freedom (1871)