34 quotes
Is it my fault if hypocrisy and imbecility everywhere hide behind this holy formula?
The System of Economic Contradictions, or The Philosophy of Poverty (1846)
Justice is the product of nature and labour
What is Property? (1840)
The first act of man, filled and carried away with enthusiasm (of the divine breath), is to adore the invisible Providence on which he feels that he depends, and which he calls GOD.
It is necessary to have lived in this insulator which is called the national assembly, in order to perceive how the men who are the most completely ignorant of the state of the country are almost always the ones who represent it.
Confessions of a Revolutionary (1849)
I should like to restore with one hand what I destroy with the other. When pruning an old tree one should avoid destroying the buds and fruit; you know this is as well as anyone.
What is Property? (1840)
All my economic ideas as developed over twenty-five years can be summed up in the words: agricultural-industrial federation. All my political ideas boil down to a similar formula: political federation or decentralization.
Du principe Fédératif [Principle of Federation (1863)
The end of the old civilization has come; the face of the earth will be renewed under a new son. Let the present generation perish, let the old prevaricators die in the desert! The holy earth will not cover their bones.
What is Property? (1840)
I will explain therefore how, studying in the silence of my heart, and far from every human consideration, the mystery of social revolutions, God, the great unknown, has become for me an hypothesis, — I mean a necessary dialectical tool.
The System of Economic Contradictions, or The Philosophy of Poverty (1846)
I have found more peace in the knowledge of truth than anger in the feeling of oppression, and the most precious fruit that I could want to collect in this memoir would be to inspire my readers with that peace of mind arising from the clear perception of evil and its causes.
What is Property? (1840)
Eternity precedes us, eternity follows us: between two infinites, of what account is one poor mortal that the century should inquire about him?
Disregard then, reader, my title and my character, and attend only to my arguments.
What is Property? (1840)
I stand ready to negotiate, but I want no part of laws: I acknowledge none; I protest against every order with which some authority may feel pleased on the basis of some alleged necessity to over-rule my free will. Laws: We know what they are, and what they are worth! They are spider webs for the rich and mighty, steel chains for the poor and weak, fishing nets in the hands of government.
Man is very willing to obey the law of duty, serve his country, and oblige his friends; but he wishes to labor when he pleases, where he pleases, and as much as he pleases... to act from judgment, not by command...
I will explain … how, studying in the silence of my heart, and far from every human consideration, the mystery of social revolutions, God, the great unknown, has become for me an hypothesis, — I mean a necessary dialectical tool.
I have made every effort to obtain exact information, comparing doctrines, replying to objections, continually constructing equations and reductions from arguments, and weighing thousands of syllogisms in the scales of the most rigorous logic. In this laborious work, I have collected many interesting facts which I shall share with my friends and the public as soon as I have leisure. But I must say that I recognized at once that we had never understood the meaning of these words, so common and yet so sacred: Justice, equity, liberty; that concerning each of these principles our ideas have been utterly obscure; and, in fact, that this ignorance was the sole cause, both of the poverty that devours us, and of all the calamities that have ever afflicted the human race.
What is Property? (1840)