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Political rights do not exist because they have been legally set down on a piece of paper, but only when they have become the ingrown habit of a people, and when any attempt to impair them will meet with the violent resistance of the populace.

— Rudolf Rocker Anarcho-Syndicalism (1938)

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More quotes by Rudolf Rocker

The peoples owe all the political rights and privileges which we enjoy today in greater or lesser measure, not to the good will of their governments, but to their own strength.

Anarcho-Syndicalism (1938)

The will to power which always emanates from individuals or from small minorities in society is in fact a most important driving force in history.

Nationalism and Culture (1937)

Anarchism is a definite intellectual current in the life of our times, whose adherents advocate the abolition of economic monopolies and of all political and social coercive institutions within society.

Anarcho-Syndicalism (1938)

Organisation is, after all, only a means to an end. When it becomes an end in itself, it kills the spirit and the vital initiative of its members and sets up that domination by mediocrity which is the characteristic of all bureaucracies.

Anarcho-Syndicalism (1938)

For the machine, because of the way it is built, can work only in a given direction, no matter who pulls its levers.

Nationalism and Culture (1937)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Rudolf Rocker (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.