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If you say that you reject violence when it exceeds the limits imposed by the needs of defense, they accuse you of pacifism, without understanding that violence is the whole essence of authoritarianism, just as the repudiation of violence is the whole essence of anarchism.

— Errico Malatesta

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Philosophy

More quotes by Errico Malatesta

We anarchists do not want to emancipate the people; we want the people to emancipate themselves.

Anarchy is a word that comes from the Greek, and signifies, strictly speaking, "without government": the state of a people without any constituted authority.

Anarchy (1891)

Violence is the whole essence of authoritarianism, just as the repudiation of violence is the whole essence of anarchism.

I think the question is not about "communists" and "individualists", but rather about anarchists and non-anarchists.

Note to the article 'Individualism and Anarchism' by Adams (1924)

Individualist anarchism and communist anarchism are the same, or nearly so, in terms of moral motivations and ultimate goals.

All Errico Malatesta quotes →

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The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

H. P. Lovecraft The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped.

Robert Anton Wilson

Every morning
I shall concern myself anew about the boundary
Between the love-deed-Yes and the power-deed-No
And pressing forward honor reality.

Martin Buber Power and Love (1926)

In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended.

John C. Lilly The Human Biocomputer (1974)

Attribution

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