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If we seek the liberation of the people by means of a lie, we will surely grow confused, go astray, and lose sight of our objective, and if we have any influence at all on the people we will lead them astray as well — in other words, we will be acting in the spirit of reaction and to its benefit.

— Mikhail Bakunin

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More quotes by Mikhail Bakunin

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)

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