Emile Armand

About the author

Émile Armand: Prolific Anarchist Writer

Émile Armand was born on 26th of March, 1872 in Paris, France. He was a self-proclaimed anarchist individualist, pacifist and supporter of free love. Armand wrote extensively on his theoretical ideas, contributing to various anarchist publications, informing and influencing the anarchist movements across the globe. His ideologies were shaped by his opposition to the concept of state and his criticisms of organized religions and institutional marriage.

Armand's major contribution lies in his promotion of anarchy through his writings. He consistently argued for the individual's unhindered right to explore self-satisfaction and happiness, without the interference and constraint of the state. His promotion of free love was a critique of marriage as an institution imposed by the state and church. These concepts stirred a critical dialogue within the anarchist communities and helped shape anarchist individualism. Armand passed away on 19th February 1962, leaving a significant body of work that continues to influence anarchist philosophy and inspire succeeding generations of anarchists.

Date of Birth: 26 March 1872

Date of Death: 19 February 1962

Country of Birth: France

Political Ideas: Anarchist Individualism, Free Love

Quotes Available: 13

Quotes by Emile Armand

There is a conflict between the static and dynamic conceptions of anarchism, between those who want to gregarize and stabilize anarchism and those who want the revolutionary, individualist spirit to remain and simmer permanently within anarchism.

The anarchist individualists do not present themselves as proletarians, absorbed only in the search for material amelioration, tied to a class determined to transform the world and to substitute a new society for the actual one.

In anarchy, there are as many "moralities" as there are anarchists, taken individually, or groups or associations of anarchists. Thus, in anarchy, one is amoral.

All of the exploited, legal or illegal, cooperate in the state of domination.

Anarchists no more want to be masters than they want to be servants - they no more want to exercise violence than to submit to it. They expose, they propose, but they do not impose.

I am absolutely convinced that only a small minority, a very small minority, among men, are seriously reached and profoundly moved by our propaganda of criticism, of doubt, of rebellion, of free investigation, of independent research. On the other hand, it is clear that our first interest lies always in seeking to increase this minority; to keep it, under all circumstances alive, active, refreshed. Our own happiness depends on it.

Once the individual owns his own tools and his product, capitalism ceases to exist.

The work of the anarchist is above all a work of critique. The anarchist goes, sowing revolt against that which oppresses, obstructs, opposes itself to the free expansion of the individual being.

The individualist anarchist critiques to free themselves and others.

We are apolitical and take no part in party quarrels. In all spheres we are for the voluntary against the obligatory; for consent against imposition; for reason against violence; for free examination against dogmatism.

When "voluntary association" is spoken of, voluntary adhesion to a plan, a project, a given action, this implies the possibility of refusing the association, adhesion or action.

The individualist anarchist is never accountable to anyone but himself for his acts and gestures.

Nor does [our kind of individualist] wish to have anything in common with those armchair Nietzcheans or weekend Stirnerites who imagine, poor wretches, that they are "affirming their individuality" by petty dishonesty in money matters, or by forcing themselves upon the companion of a friend in prison.

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