Mikhail Bakunin
Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.Collection: Politics
Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does good not because he is forced to do so, but because he freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it.Collection: Freedom
I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure.Collection: Intelligence
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.Collection: Respect
Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie; and the workers want no lying.Collection: Equality
I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation.Collection: Freedom
From the naturalistic point of view, all men are equal. There are only two exceptions to this rule of naturalistic equality: geniuses and idiots.Collection: Equality
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.
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.
The communism of Marx seeks a strong state centralization, and where this exists, there the parasitic Jewish nation - which speculates upon the labor of people - will always find the means for its existence.
The passion for destruction is also a creative passion.
Everything will pass, and the world will perish but the Ninth Symphony will remain.
A Boss in Heaven is the best excuse for a boss on earth, therefore If God did exist, he would have to be abolished.
Anyone who makes plans for after the revolution is a reactionary.
People go to church for the same reasons they go to a tavern: to stupefy themselves, to forget their misery, to imagine themselves, for a few minutes anyway, free and happy.
To my utter despair I have discovered, and discover every day anew, that there is in the masses no revolutionary idea or hope or passion.
I am sure that, on the one hand, the Rothschilds appreciate the merits of Marx, and that on the other hand, Marx feels an instinctive inclination and a great respect for the Rothschilds.
From each according to his faculties; to each according to his needs.
Where the state begins, individual liberty ceases, and vice versa.
Does it follow that I reject all authority? Perish the thought. In the matter of boots, I defer to the authority of the boot-maker.
The privilege of ruling would be in the hands of the skilled and the learned, with a wide scope left for profitable crooked deals carried on by the Jews, who would be attracted by the enormous extension of the international speculations of the national banks.
If there is a State, then there is domination, and in turn, there is slavery.
The freedom of all is essential to my freedom.
I am conscious of my inability to grasp, in all its details and positive developments, any very large portion of human knowledge.
Therefore, if God existed, only in one way could he serve human liberty - by ceasing to exist.
The privileged man, whether he be privileged politically or economically, is a man depraved in intellect and heart.
Powerful states can maintain themselves only by crime, little states are virtuous only by weakness.
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.
I bow before the authority of special men because it is imposed upon me by my own reason.
He who desires to worship God must harbor no childish illusions about the matter but bravely renounce his liberty and humanity.
The liberty of man consists solely in this, that he obeys the laws of nature because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been imposed upon him externally by any foreign will whatsoever, human or divine, collective or individual.
But I recognize no infallible authority, even in special questions; consequently, whatever respect I may have for the honesty and the sincerity of such or such an individual, I have no absolute faith in any person.
Even the most wretched individual of our present society could not exist and develop without the cumulative social efforts of countless generations.
Look at Christ, my dear friend: His life was divine through and through, full of self-denial, and He did everything for mankind, finding His satisfaction and His delight in the dissolution of His material being.
Such a faith would be fatal to my reason, to my liberty, and even to the success of my undertakings; it would immediately transform me into a stupid slave, an instrument of the will and interests of others.
Thence results, for science as well as for industry, the necessity of the division and association of labor. I receive and I give - such is human life. Each directs and is directed in his turn.
This contradiction lies here: they wish God, and they wish humanity. They persist in connecting two terms which, once separated, can come together again only to destroy each other.
In every State, the government is nothing but a permanent conspiracy on the part of the minority against the majority, which it enslaves and fleeces.Collection: Government
If you took the most ardent revolutionary, vested him in absolute power, within a year he would be worse than the Tsar himself.Collection: Years
In antiquity slaves were, in all honesty called slaves. In the middle ages, they took the name of serfs. Nowadays they are called wage earners.Collection: Honesty
Our first work must be the annihilation of everything as it now exists.Collection: Firsts
If there is a State, there must be domination of one class by another and, as a result, slavery; the State without slavery is unthinkable - and this is why we are the enemies of the State.Collection: Class
They maintain that only a dictatorship - their dictatorship, of course - can create the will of the people, while our answer to this is: No dictatorship can have any other aim but that of self-perpetuation, and it can beget only slavery in the people tolerating it; freedom can be created only by freedom, that is, by a universal rebellion on the part of the people and free organization of the toiling masses from the bottom up.Collection: Self
As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth.Collection: God
When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called "the People's Stick."Collection: School
All religions, with their gods, their demigods, and their prophets, their messiahs and their saints, were created by the credulous fancy of men who had not attained the full development and full possession of their faculties.Collection: Men
Mr. Marx does not believe in God, but he believes deeply in himself. His heart is filled not with love but with rancor. He has very little benevolence toward men and becomes... furious and... spiteful... when anyone dares question the omniscience of the divinity whom he adores, that is to say, Mr. Marx himself.Collection: Christian
A person is strong only when he stands upon his own truth, when he speaks and acts from his deepest convictions.Collection: Strength
Religion is a collective insanity.Collection: Insanity