Anarchism – Anarchist Quotes

"We won the revolution, what we lost was the war."

— Abel Paz,
Anarchist Activist (1921 ‐ 2009)
Spanish anarcho-syndicalist and historian.

"Below a certain size, everything fuses, joins, or accumulates. But beyond a certain size, everything collapses or explodes."

— Leopold Kohr,
Anarchist Thinker (1909 ‐ 1994)
Austrian philosopher and activist

"What we mean by equality between the sexes is not just that men will no longer oppress women. We also want men to no longer be oppressed by other men and women no longer to be oppressed by other women."

— He Zhen,
Influential Theorist
Anarchist, feminist, and writer

"The nature of a species can be changed completely as a result of the modifications resulting from the passage through a series of environments."

— Guy Aldred,
Prolific writer and orator (1886 ‐ 1963)
British anarchist and publisher

"Parliament: A compound word from "parler" (to speak) and "mentir" (to lie)."

— Anonymous,
Digital Activists
A symbol representing anonymity and dissent

"By providing the illusion of participation for everyone, democracy allows majorities to justify their actions, no matter how oppressive."

— Moxie Marlinspike,
Digital Anarchist
Anarchist and cybersecurity professional

"We're all undesirable elements from somebody's point of view."

— Edward Abbey,
eco-anarchist (1927 ‐ 1989)
American author and essayist noted for radical environmentalist views.

"I can't understand why people are frightened by new ideas. I'm frightened of old ones."

— John Cage,
Influential Anarchist (1912 ‐ 1992)
Composer, music theorist, philosopher

"The internationalism of socialists is just an empty phrase."

— Lev Chernyi,
Poet, Anarchist (1893 ‐ 1921)
Anarchist and poet who died in a show trial.

"The hundreds of workers' associations organized during the period 1870-1900 and the tens of publications give ample testimony to the energetic anarchist activity designed to destroy bourgeois, state and religious influences among workers."

— Abel Paz,
Anarchist Activist (1921 ‐ 2009)
Spanish anarcho-syndicalist and historian.

"Anarchism, nihilism, and terrorism are often mistakenly equated, and in most dictionaries will be found at least two definitions of the anarchist. One presents him as a man who believes that government must die before freedom can live. The other dismisses him as a mere promoter of disorder who offers nothing in place of the order he destroys."

— George Woodcock,
peaceful visionary (1912 ‐ 1995)
Canadian writer and anarchist historian

"Bigness, or oversize, is really much more than just a social problem. It appears to be the one and only problem permeating all creation."

— Leopold Kohr,
Anarchist Thinker (1909 ‐ 1994)
Austrian philosopher and activist

"Rest in peace, poor Mata! Someone who never knew you has sworn to avenge you. And the memory of your blood-drenched eyes will drive his dagger; the vision of your mutilated body will render his bomb more effective."

— Bruno Filippi,
Rebel Writer (1900 ‐ 1919)
Italian individualist anarchist and writer

"Voting strongly resembles the capitalist economic system that always accompanies democracy."

— Moxie Marlinspike,
Digital Anarchist
Anarchist and cybersecurity professional

"In the Middle Ages, there was war in some corner of Europe almost every day. But they were little wars with little effects because the powers waging them were little and their resources small."

— Leopold Kohr,
Anarchist Thinker (1909 ‐ 1994)
Austrian philosopher and activist

"The revolution consisted in the fact that the workers became masters of the instruments of labor and did not falter in their management of the means of production."

— Abel Paz,
Anarchist Activist (1921 ‐ 2009)
Spanish anarcho-syndicalist and historian.

"In the midst of the unspeakable chaos of philosophies of all kinds and of various moralities we can cull out the constant and persistent tendency which pushes the individual towards life. Towards an ever better life, freer and more noble: that is, towards happiness."

— Andre Lorulot,
Provocative Anarchist (1885 ‐ 1963)
French Anarchist, pacifist and free-thinker.

"Even in infancy, while a person is dependent on another, abuses are committed and slavery and tyranny exist. It should be the purpose of free schools to study the reasons for such a lack of solidarity, to draw the attention of the pupils to what they actually see."

— Abel Paz,
Anarchist Activist (1921 ‐ 2009)
Spanish anarcho-syndicalist and historian.

"Even if you believe that voting is more than a selection of meaningless choices designed to mask the true lack of agency we have, there is a tremendous amount of money and power and influence on the other side of this equation. So don't just vote or petition."

— Moxie Marlinspike,
Digital Anarchist
Anarchist and cybersecurity professional

"Bakunin was unquestionably inferior to Marx as a political economist. His economics are Marxist, and he subscribed enthusiastically to Marx's theory of surplus value and dissection of the capitalist system."

— Guy Aldred,
Prolific writer and orator (1886 ‐ 1963)
British anarchist and publisher

"Revolution can never stop."

— John Cage,
Influential Anarchist (1912 ‐ 1992)
Composer, music theorist, philosopher

"Heaven is home. Utopia is here. Nirvana is now."

— Edward Abbey,
eco-anarchist (1927 ‐ 1989)
American author and essayist noted for radical environmentalist views.

"We can only desire based on what we know. It is our present experience of what we are and are not able to do that largely determines our sense for what is possible."

— Moxie Marlinspike,
Digital Anarchist
Anarchist and cybersecurity professional

"Durruti had learned endless things during the months of civil war, but the main lesson that he received was a full confirmation of the working class's capacity to govern itself and the damage done by the committees' bureaucratic leaderism."

— Abel Paz,
Anarchist Activist (1921 ‐ 2009)
Spanish anarcho-syndicalist and historian.

"The demand for equality is nothing other than the demand: equal rights for all!"

— Erich Muhsam,
Anarchist Writer (1878 ‐ 1934)
German-Jewish Antifascist Anarchist, Writer

""Whoever denies authority and fights against it is an anarchist," said Sebastien Faure. The definition is tempting in its simplicity, but simplicity is the first thing to guard against in writing a history of anarchism."

— George Woodcock,
peaceful visionary (1912 ‐ 1995)
Canadian writer and anarchist historian

"The people are conservative: they are satisfied with the society they find. The minority are innovators instead and therefore they rebel."

— Bruno Filippi,
Rebel Writer (1900 ‐ 1919)
Italian individualist anarchist and writer

"The anarchist believes that the government is the limit of liberty. He hopes, by destroying government, to expand liberty. The true limit is not government, but society. Government is a social product like another. We don't destroy a tree by cutting one of its branches."

— Han Ryner,
Pacifist Philosopher (1861 ‐ 1938)
French individualist anarchist and pacifist

"I know that I live and that I desire to live."

— Bruno Filippi,
Rebel Writer (1900 ‐ 1919)
Italian individualist anarchist and writer

"I have a god (dio) like everyone else; but this god is myself (io)."

— Bruno Filippi,
Rebel Writer (1900 ‐ 1919)
Italian individualist anarchist and writer

"True organisation like true liberty belongs to the future -- and the Socialist Commonwealth, or, as I have termed it elsewhere, the Anarchist Republic."

— Guy Aldred,
Prolific writer and orator (1886 ‐ 1963)
British anarchist and publisher

"The anarchist teaching prescribes no method of struggle and rejects none which is in harmony with self-determination and free will."

— Erich Muhsam,
Anarchist Writer (1878 ‐ 1934)
German-Jewish Antifascist Anarchist, Writer

"Maybe I am crazy. But my madness is the most terrible rationality. I see further, I feel life more vividly."

— Bruno Filippi,
Rebel Writer (1900 ‐ 1919)
Italian individualist anarchist and writer

"In the United States, the New Left has agreed to regard itself as Marxist and speaks of seizing power and building socialism, although it is strongly opposed to centralized power and it has no economic theory whatever for a society and technology like ours."

— Paul Goodman,
Visionary Thinker (1911 ‐ 1972)
Political activist, poet and writer.

"Socialists, so called, have degraded Marx's declaration of a political class struggle to mean something which it never did and never can mean, namely, parliamentary action."

— Guy Aldred,
Prolific writer and orator (1886 ‐ 1963)
British anarchist and publisher

"Man as we know him, in the highest actual stage of development, loves learning, yearns alter truth, and identifies his personal happiness with the realization and maintenance of his ideals."

— Guy Aldred,
Prolific writer and orator (1886 ‐ 1963)
British anarchist and publisher

"The concept of the "majority" is particularly troubling. By always accepting the will of the majority, democracy allows for majorities to have an absolute tyranny over everyone else."

— Moxie Marlinspike,
Digital Anarchist
Anarchist and cybersecurity professional

"I have a good idea that will exempt you from relying on others while still finding food naturally. How? By practicing communism."

— He Zhen,
Influential Theorist
Anarchist, feminist, and writer

"The wise man knows that the words "The happiness of the people," have no meaning. Happiness is internal and individual. It can only be produced within oneself."

— Han Ryner,
Pacifist Philosopher (1861 ‐ 1938)
French individualist anarchist and pacifist

"Even if a single United Nations World State would come into existence, it would solve nothing. It would still be composed of the reduced number of state organisms crystallizing around the remaining great powers."

— Leopold Kohr,
Anarchist Thinker (1909 ‐ 1994)
Austrian philosopher and activist

"The fact that modern wars are fewer in number can hardly be considered a praiseworthy contribution to peace if we take into account the misery they spread from one end of the world to the other."

— Leopold Kohr,
Anarchist Thinker (1909 ‐ 1994)
Austrian philosopher and activist

"There cannot be a history of anarchism in the sense of establishing a permanent state of things called "anarchist." It is always a continual coping with the next situation, and a vigilance to make sure that past freedoms are not lost and do not turn into the opposite."

— Paul Goodman,
Visionary Thinker (1911 ‐ 1972)
Political activist, poet and writer.

"We must do the impossible -- rid the world of nations, bringing the play of intelligent anarchy into a world environment."

— John Cage,
Influential Anarchist (1912 ‐ 1992)
Composer, music theorist, philosopher

"Like such titles as Christian and Quaker, "anarchist" was in the end proudly adopted by one of those against whom it had been used in condemnation."

— George Woodcock,
peaceful visionary (1912 ‐ 1995)
Canadian writer and anarchist historian

"Not all those who are considered anarchists are pure anarchists. Tolstoy and Kropotkin have to be thrown out, having very little anarchy in their systems. They are anarchists only in the political sphere, and in all other relations between people they remain ardent communists."

— Lev Chernyi,
Poet, Anarchist (1893 ‐ 1921)
Anarchist and poet who died in a show trial.

"The complete transformation of everyone's living conditions can never be achieved on the path of slow development, through which at most improvements within a social system are possible."

— Erich Muhsam,
Anarchist Writer (1878 ‐ 1934)
German-Jewish Antifascist Anarchist, Writer

"Either it is true that humanity by intelligence and by the practice of mutual aid and direct action can reverse processes which appear socially inevitable, or humanity will become extinct by simple maladaptation."

— George Woodcock,
peaceful visionary (1912 ‐ 1995)
Canadian writer and anarchist historian

"The wise man notes that reforms change the names of things and not the things themselves. The slave became a serf, and then a salaried worker: nothing has been reformed but language. The wise man remains indifferent to these questions of philology."

— Han Ryner,
Pacifist Philosopher (1861 ‐ 1938)
French individualist anarchist and pacifist

"In this country, where we have no continuing anarchist tradition, the young hardly know their tendency at all."

— Paul Goodman,
Visionary Thinker (1911 ‐ 1972)
Political activist, poet and writer.

"What is the most important thing in the world? It is eating. Why do you women suffer mistreatment? It is relying on others in order to eat."

— He Zhen,
Influential Theorist
Anarchist, feminist, and writer

"If the federal government can't even count how many laws there are, what chance does an individual have of being certain that they are not acting in violation of one of them?"

— Moxie Marlinspike,
Digital Anarchist
Anarchist and cybersecurity professional

"In anarchy the Russian, Finn, Jew, Georgian, and Ukrainian are not enemies, but comrades. In short, there is only one conclusion: anarchy inevitably leads to internationalism."

— Lev Chernyi,
Poet, Anarchist (1893 ‐ 1921)
Anarchist and poet who died in a show trial.

"Those maintaining positions of power will always encourage the freedom to talk about ideas, but never to act."

— Moxie Marlinspike,
Digital Anarchist
Anarchist and cybersecurity professional

"Out of the class or property social system there cannot emerge a "representation" which signifies an honest attempt to secure just exposition of principles and expressions of antagonistic interests."

— Guy Aldred,
Prolific writer and orator (1886 ‐ 1963)
British anarchist and publisher

"What is "being an active agent?" It is women struggling for liberation with their own might. What is "being a passive agent?" It is men's granting liberation to women... what active forces there have been have come from men, and as a result the benefits to women have not equaled those garnered by men."

— He Zhen,
Influential Theorist
Anarchist, feminist, and writer

"Anarchists emphatically reject a morality which denies the original concepts of right and wrong."

— Erich Muhsam,
Anarchist Writer (1878 ‐ 1934)
German-Jewish Antifascist Anarchist, Writer

"I passionately love humanity, and have dedicated my best efforts to the fight for the oppressed. All tyrants disgust me -- and all those who put up with them, adulate them, support them. After having brought them down will I make myself a tyrant in their place? I would be disgusted with myself."

— Andre Lorulot,
Provocative Anarchist (1885 ‐ 1963)
French Anarchist, pacifist and free-thinker.

"People, beware of demagogues. They are your worst enemies. They caress you only so they can better shear you."

— Andre Lorulot,
Provocative Anarchist (1885 ‐ 1963)
French Anarchist, pacifist and free-thinker.

"If the federal government had access to every email you've ever written and every phone call you've ever made, it's almost certain that they could find something you've done which violates a provision in the 27,000 pages of federal statues or 10,000 administrative regulations. You probably do have something to hide, you just don't know it yet."

— Moxie Marlinspike,
Digital Anarchist
Anarchist and cybersecurity professional

"History is written by the victors."

— Anonymous,
Digital Activists
A symbol representing anonymity and dissent

"The protesting students are anarchist because they are in a historical situation to which anarchism is their only possible response."

— Paul Goodman,
Visionary Thinker (1911 ‐ 1972)
Political activist, poet and writer.

"An armed citizenry is the first defense, the best defense, and the final defense against tyranny."

— Edward Abbey,
eco-anarchist (1927 ‐ 1989)
American author and essayist noted for radical environmentalist views.

"Experience proves to the wise man that revolutions never have lasting results. Reason tells him that lies are not refuted by lies, and that violence isn't destroyed by violence."

— Han Ryner,
Pacifist Philosopher (1861 ‐ 1938)
French individualist anarchist and pacifist

"The majority can hardly accept the existence of anything but the two extremes: masters and slaves."

— Lev Chernyi,
Poet, Anarchist (1893 ‐ 1921)
Anarchist and poet who died in a show trial.

"The revolution did not fail, it was defeated militarily. Perhaps with the passage of time it would have developed a paralyzing bureaucracy but we will never know."

— Abel Paz,
Anarchist Activist (1921 ‐ 2009)
Spanish anarcho-syndicalist and historian.

"The main difference between the anarchists and the socialists, including the Marxists, lies in the fact that while the socialists maintain that the state must be taken over as the first step toward its dissolution, the anarchists argue that, since power corrupts, any seizure of the existing structure of authority can only lead to its perpetuation."

— George Woodcock,
peaceful visionary (1912 ‐ 1995)
Canadian writer and anarchist historian

"Nobody scolded or hated capitalism more than him, but the subtle mind of Proudhon saw the vileness of communism."

— Lev Chernyi,
Poet, Anarchist (1893 ‐ 1921)
Anarchist and poet who died in a show trial.

"Man will only be able to act usefully when he will have managed to destroy all lies, freed himself from all the superstitions given birth to by error, sought the truth in the jumble of knowledge and observations."

— Andre Lorulot,
Provocative Anarchist (1885 ‐ 1963)
French Anarchist, pacifist and free-thinker.

"The freedom of everyone, and thereby the freedom of each individual, requires community in socialism."

— Erich Muhsam,
Anarchist Writer (1878 ‐ 1934)
German-Jewish Antifascist Anarchist, Writer

"Let us not lose time asking an imaginary god for what only human effort can obtain for us."

— Abel Paz,
Anarchist Activist (1921 ‐ 2009)
Spanish anarcho-syndicalist and historian.

"Let us not lose time asking others to give us what we can obtain ourselves."

— Abel Paz,
Anarchist Activist (1921 ‐ 2009)
Spanish anarcho-syndicalist and historian.

"I envy the savages. And I will cry to them in a loud voice: "Save yourselves, civilization is coming.""

— Bruno Filippi,
Rebel Writer (1900 ‐ 1919)
Italian individualist anarchist and writer

"The domination of man by the creation of man is even more ridiculous than the domination of man by man."

— George Woodcock,
peaceful visionary (1912 ‐ 1995)
Canadian writer and anarchist historian

"Is work a social or a natural law? Work is a natural law worsened by society."

— Han Ryner,
Pacifist Philosopher (1861 ‐ 1938)
French individualist anarchist and pacifist

"If the Russian revolution was a victory, who won? The workers? No. On the other hand, the Commune of Paris was a great working class victory. Ours, too."

— Abel Paz,
Anarchist Activist (1921 ‐ 2009)
Spanish anarcho-syndicalist and historian.

"The individualist is like a wolf who prefers the dangers of liberty to the routine of domestication. Individualists compare themselves to the bird who would prefer to suffer and struggle on its branch than to die a slow death in the servitude of a gilded cage."

— Andre Lorulot,
Provocative Anarchist (1885 ‐ 1963)
French Anarchist, pacifist and free-thinker.

"I actually think that law enforcement should be difficult, and I think it should actually be possible to break the law."

— Moxie Marlinspike,
Digital Anarchist
Anarchist and cybersecurity professional

"We must make the world safe for poverty without dependence on government."

— John Cage,
Influential Anarchist (1912 ‐ 1992)
Composer, music theorist, philosopher

"The old motives of profit and self-interest will cease to dominate economic life. Instead the incentive will be the good of the members of society, without distinction."

— George Woodcock,
peaceful visionary (1912 ‐ 1995)
Canadian writer and anarchist historian

"I do not want to unite with the multitude of those who flatter the proletariat, excusing them, praising them, adorning them with wreathes."

— Bruno Filippi,
Rebel Writer (1900 ‐ 1919)
Italian individualist anarchist and writer

"In the face of dogmas, of despots, of the sentimental, of charlatans and regimenters, humanity's future belongs to reason."

— Andre Lorulot,
Provocative Anarchist (1885 ‐ 1963)
French Anarchist, pacifist and free-thinker.

"The wise man knows that the oppressed who complain aspire to be oppressors. He relieves them according to his means, but he doesn't believe in salvation through common action."

— Han Ryner,
Pacifist Philosopher (1861 ‐ 1938)
French individualist anarchist and pacifist

"Imagination is very important to having vision and trying to find things that are different, alternate ways."

— Vermin Supreme,
anarcho-humorist
Perennial candidate and performance artist.

"Money should be for ponies, not for war, I think."

— Vermin Supreme,
anarcho-humorist
Perennial candidate and performance artist.

"When you create Hope in people, you create expectations. When you do not fulfill those expectations, when the change becomes more of the same old, same old, the Hope that was created can only turn to anger, frustration and bitter disappointment."

— Vermin Supreme,
anarcho-humorist
Perennial candidate and performance artist.

"Like an operating system, the State defines us in relation to itself and each other. It defines us, for example, as citizens or residents, households and taxpayers. And these definitions make clear whether the state approves of our behavior."

— Eric Laursen,
Political Activist
American author, journalist, activist

"Ask for work. If they don't give you work, ask for bread. If they do not give you work or bread, then take bread."

— Emma Goldman,
anarcho-feminist (1869 ‐ 1940)
Influential anarchist, political activist, writer.

"As a social anarchist, I believe that capitalism itself is an inherently exploitative hierarchical situation - you do have a boss, you do have somebody in charge."

— Vermin Supreme,
anarcho-humorist
Perennial candidate and performance artist.

"Anarchism's outward form is a free, non-governed society, which offers freedom, equality and solidarity for its members. Its foundations are to be found in man’s sense of mutual responsibility, which has remained unchanged in all places and times."

— Nestor Makhno,
Anarcho-communist (1888 ‐ 1934)
Anarchist Revolutionary and commander of an independent army in Ukraine

"Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others."

— Edward Abbey,
eco-anarchist (1927 ‐ 1989)
American author and essayist noted for radical environmentalist views.

"My personal view of the anarch-capitalists is that it's an oxymoron."

— Vermin Supreme,
anarcho-humorist
Perennial candidate and performance artist.

"Unfortunately, there are still a number of people who continue in the fatal belief that government rests on natural laws, that it maintains social order and harmony, that it diminishes crime, and that it prevents the lazy man from fleecing his fellows."

— Emma Goldman,
anarcho-feminist (1869 ‐ 1940)
Influential anarchist, political activist, writer.

"In Russia the so-called dictatorship of the proletariat has not led to Socialism, but to the domination of a new bureaucracy over the proletariat and the whole people."

— Rudolf Rocker,
anarcho-syndicalist (1873 ‐ 1958)
Influential anarchist writer and speaker

"The people themselves, and only the people, determine the rhythm of our fight."

— Federica Montseny,
Anarchist Feminist (1905 ‐ 1994)
Anarchist and author of novels

"We have become a civilization based on work—not even “productive work” but work as an end and meaning in itself."

— David Graeber,
Anarcho-Communist (1961 ‐ 2020)
Anthropologist, anarchist activist and author

"The struggle is so great that the triumph over fascism alone is worth the sacrifice of our lives."

— Federica Montseny,
Anarchist Feminist (1905 ‐ 1994)
Anarchist and author of novels

"We have been expropriated from our own language by television, from our songs by reality TV contests, from our flesh by mass pornography, from our city by the police and from our friends by wage-labor."

— The Invisible Committee,
Anarcho-Communist
An anarchist collective author

"Shit jobs tend to be blue collar and pay by the hour, whereas bullshit jobs tend to be white collar and salaried."

— David Graeber,
Anarcho-Communist (1961 ‐ 2020)
Anthropologist, anarchist activist and author

"Power operates only destructively, bent always on forcing every manifestation of life into the straitjacket of its laws. Its intellectual form of expression is dead dogma, its physical form brute force."

— Rudolf Rocker,
anarcho-syndicalist (1873 ‐ 1958)
Influential anarchist writer and speaker

"War is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their own battle; therefore they take boys from one village and another village; stick them into uniforms, equip them with guns, and let them loose like wild beasts against each other."

— Emma Goldman,
anarcho-feminist (1869 ‐ 1940)
Influential anarchist, political activist, writer.

"Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners."

— Edward Abbey,
eco-anarchist (1927 ‐ 1989)
American author and essayist noted for radical environmentalist views.

"Thirty years of crisis, mass unemployment, and flagging growth, and they still want us to believe in the economy. . . . We have to see that the economy is itself the crisis."

— The Invisible Committee,
Anarcho-Communist
An anarchist collective author

"The anarchist conclusion is that every kind of human activity should begin from what from what is local and immediate, should link in a network with no centre and no directing agency, hiving off new cells as the original grows."

— Colin Ward,
Anarcho-mutualist (1924 ‐ 2010)
British writer and anarchist

"But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist."

— Lysander Spooner,
Anarcho-Individualist (1808 ‐ 1887)
American political philosopher and abolitionist

"The aim is not therefore to liberate some 'essential self' by throwing off the burden of government and the State, but to develop the self in creative and voluntary relations with others."

— Peter Marshall,
Anarchist Thinker
Historian, philosopher, and writer.

"We tried many times before to speed on the social revolution in Spain; attempted to stir up the feelings of the people and to raise the banner of Libertarian Communism."

— Federica Montseny,
Anarchist Feminist (1905 ‐ 1994)
Anarchist and author of novels

"Common to all Anarchists is the desire to free society of all political and social coercive institutions which stand in the way of development of a free humanity."

— Rudolf Rocker,
anarcho-syndicalist (1873 ‐ 1958)
Influential anarchist writer and speaker

"Anarchists believe we can run our lives without the government."

— Vermin Supreme,
anarcho-humorist
Perennial candidate and performance artist.

"It’s hard to imagine a surer sign that one is dealing with an irrational economic system than the fact that the prospect of eliminating drudgery is considered to be a problem."

— David Graeber,
Anarcho-Communist (1961 ‐ 2020)
Anthropologist, anarchist activist and author

"We have to see that the economy is not in crisis, the economy is itself the crisis. It's not that there's not enough work, it's that there is too much of it."

— The Invisible Committee,
Anarcho-Communist
An anarchist collective author

"The Anarcho-Syndicalists know that wars are only waged in the interest of the ruling classes; they believe, therefore, that any means is justifiable that can prevent the organised murder of peoples."

— Rudolf Rocker,
anarcho-syndicalist (1873 ‐ 1958)
Influential anarchist writer and speaker

"We are the slaves of slaves. We are exploited more ruthlessly than men."

— Lucy Parsons,
Anarcho-communist (1853 ‐ 1942)
Influential American labor organizer and radical socialist

"Just as you cannot see, at pleasure, with your ears and you cannot, at will, hear with your eyes so too you cannot make the state act in the interests of the working people. As an organ in the social body, its purpose is for the repression of self-determination."

— Rudolf Rocker,
anarcho-syndicalist (1873 ‐ 1958)
Influential anarchist writer and speaker

"The individual cannot bargain with the State. The State recognizes no coinage but power: and it issues the coins itself."

— Ursula K. Le Guin,
anarcho-feminist (1929 ‐ 2018)
Influential author and political activist

"You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere."

— Ursula K. Le Guin,
anarcho-feminist (1929 ‐ 2018)
Influential author and political activist

"The police represent the authority of the state, the willingness of the state to use violence to assert their will."

— Vermin Supreme,
anarcho-humorist
Perennial candidate and performance artist.

"In Spain, we should have enough intelligence, enough sense of individual and collective responsibility to do for ourselves that which would be imposed upon us by a dictatorship."

— Federica Montseny,
Anarchist Feminist (1905 ‐ 1994)
Anarchist and author of novels

"The ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently."

— David Graeber,
Anarcho-Communist (1961 ‐ 2020)
Anthropologist, anarchist activist and author

"Our masters have not heard the people's voice for generations and it is much, much louder than they care to remember."

— Alan Moore,
individualist anarchist
English writer known for graphic novels.

"Your pretty empire took so long to build, now, with a snap of history's fingers, down it goes."

— Alan Moore,
individualist anarchist
English writer known for graphic novels.

"People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take."

— Emma Goldman,
anarcho-feminist (1869 ‐ 1940)
Influential anarchist, political activist, writer.

"No great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law. How can it be within the law? The law is stationary. The law is fixed. The law is a chariot wheel which binds us all regardless of conditions or place or time."

— Emma Goldman,
anarcho-feminist (1869 ‐ 1940)
Influential anarchist, political activist, writer.

"The state is not something which can be destroyed by a revolution, but is a condition, a certain relationship between human beings, a mode of human behaviour; we destroy it by contracting other relationships, by behaving differently."

— Colin Ward,
Anarcho-mutualist (1924 ‐ 2010)
British writer and anarchist

"The urge for social justice can only develop properly and be effective when it grows out of man's sense of personal freedom and is based on that. In other words Socialism will be free or it will not be at all."

— Rudolf Rocker,
anarcho-syndicalist (1873 ‐ 1958)
Influential anarchist writer and speaker

"Police are bureaucrats with weapons."

— David Graeber,
Anarcho-Communist (1961 ‐ 2020)
Anthropologist, anarchist activist and author

"Anarchism has but one infallible, unchangeable motto, 'Freedom.' Freedom to discover any truth, freedom to develop, to live naturally and fully."

— Lucy Parsons,
Anarcho-communist (1853 ‐ 1942)
Influential American labor organizer and radical socialist

"One who is constantly striving to force everything into a mechanical order at last becomes a machine himself and loses all human feeling."

— Rudolf Rocker,
anarcho-syndicalist (1873 ‐ 1958)
Influential anarchist writer and speaker

"Give us what belongs to us in peace, and if you don't give it to us in peace, we will take it by force."

— Emma Goldman,
anarcho-feminist (1869 ‐ 1940)
Influential anarchist, political activist, writer.

"Money has no essence. It's not really anything; therefore, its nature has always been and presumably always will be a matter of political contention."

— David Graeber,
Anarcho-Communist (1961 ‐ 2020)
Anthropologist, anarchist activist and author

"Well, mutual aid is a very critical and important thing. For a while, I was saying libertarians have no souls, but I promised them I wouldn't if they hammered home the importance of mutual aid."

— Vermin Supreme,
anarcho-humorist
Perennial candidate and performance artist.

"Anarchists have a 'bad name' in the media, not because they can point to one indiscriminate massacre by anarchists--there have been none--but because the one thing holders of power fear is that they personally should be held responsible for their own actions"

— Stuart Christie,
Anarcho-communist (1946 ‐ 2020)
Anarchist writer, publisher and activist

"The situation is like this: they hired our parents to destroy this world, and now they'd like to put us to work rebuilding it, and -- to add insult to injury -- at a profit."

— The Invisible Committee,
Anarcho-Communist
An anarchist collective author

"If I can't dance to it, it's not my revolution."

— Emma Goldman,
anarcho-feminist (1869 ‐ 1940)
Influential anarchist, political activist, writer.

"We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words."

— Ursula K. Le Guin,
anarcho-feminist (1929 ‐ 2018)
Influential author and political activist

"Authority, when first detecting chaos at its heels, will entertain the vilest schemes to save its orderly facade."

— Alan Moore,
individualist anarchist
English writer known for graphic novels.

"Efficiency' has come to mean vesting more and more power to managers, supervisors, and presumed 'efficiency experts,' so that actual producers have almost zero autonomy."

— David Graeber,
Anarcho-Communist (1961 ‐ 2020)
Anthropologist, anarchist activist and author

"Authority is something from which we are constantly subtracting, of which there remains always a residue, and which we attempt to make smaller and smaller."

— Federica Montseny,
Anarchist Feminist (1905 ‐ 1994)
Anarchist and author of novels

"We’re not depressed; we’re on strike. For those who refuse to manage themselves, “depression” is not a state but a passage, a bowing out, a sidestep towards a political disaffiliation."

— The Invisible Committee,
Anarcho-Communist
An anarchist collective author

"Anarchism: The philosophy of a new social order based on liberty unrestricted by man-made law; the theory that all forms of government rest on violence, and are therefore wrong and harmful, as well as unnecessary."

— Emma Goldman,
anarcho-feminist (1869 ‐ 1940)
Influential anarchist, political activist, writer.

"Whoever calls himself revolutionary and speaks of dictatorship is only an imbecile or a traitor."

— Joseph Dejacque,
Anarcho-Communist (1821 ‐ 1864)
French early anarchocommunist, poet and essayist

"Thus, on the one hand, the "unionised" are today in a position to understand, study and receive libertarian teachings: on the other, anarchists need not fear that, in taking part in the corporative movement, they will be required to forswear their independence."

— Fernand Pelloutier,
anarcho-syndicalist (1867 ‐ 1901)
French syndicalist and anarchist theorist.

""Soviet" power is a power no better and no worse than any other."

— Nestor Makhno,
Anarcho-communist (1888 ‐ 1934)
Anarchist Revolutionary and commander of an independent army in Ukraine

"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-syndicalist (1873 ‐ 1958)
Influential anarchist writer and speaker

"I would rather, much rather, be illegitimate according to the statutes of men, than illegitimate according to the unchanging law of nature."

— Voltairine De Cleyre,
Anarcho-Feminist (1866 ‐ 1912)
American anarchist, writer, and feminist

"Direct action is the logical, consistent method of anarchism."

— Emma Goldman,
anarcho-feminist (1869 ‐ 1940)
Influential anarchist, political activist, writer.

"If this is the price to be paid for an idea, then let us pay. There is no need of being troubled about it, afraid, or ashamed. This is the time to boldly say, "Yes, I believe in the displacement of this system of injustice by a just one; I believe in the end of starvation, exposure, and the crimes caused by them.""

— Voltairine De Cleyre,
Anarcho-Feminist (1866 ‐ 1912)
American anarchist, writer, and feminist

"Liberalism, socialism and state communism are three branches of the same family, resorting to different approaches in order to exercise their power over man."

— Nestor Makhno,
Anarcho-communist (1888 ‐ 1934)
Anarchist Revolutionary and commander of an independent army in Ukraine

"I can't see coherent political structures in the traditional sense lasting beyond the next twenty years, I don't think that would be possible."

— Alan Moore,
individualist anarchist
English writer known for graphic novels.

"High hopes were once formed of democracy; but democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people."

— Oscar Wilde,
anarcho-individualist (1854 ‐ 1900)
Irish author and poet known for his wit.

"If there be in nature such a principle as justice, it is necessarily the only political principle there ever was, or ever will be."

— Lysander Spooner,
Anarcho-Individualist (1808 ‐ 1887)
American political philosopher and abolitionist

"When private property is abolished there will be no necessity for crime, no demand for it; it will cease to exist."

— Oscar Wilde,
anarcho-individualist (1854 ‐ 1900)
Irish author and poet known for his wit.

"The things people say of a man do not alter a man. He is what he is. Public opinion is of no value whatsoever."

— Oscar Wilde,
anarcho-individualist (1854 ‐ 1900)
Irish author and poet known for his wit.

"According to their absurd programs, the statist socialists and communists have decided to "allow" man to emancipate himself socially, without its thereby being feasible for him to manifest that freedom in his social life."

— Nestor Makhno,
Anarcho-communist (1888 ‐ 1934)
Anarchist Revolutionary and commander of an independent army in Ukraine

"We have come more and more under the dominance of mechanics and sacrificed living humanity to the dead rhythm of the machine without most of us even being conscious of the monstrosity of the procedure."

— Rudolf Rocker,
anarcho-syndicalist (1873 ‐ 1958)
Influential anarchist writer and speaker

"The right of revolution, which tyrants, in mockery, accord to mankind, is no legal right under a government; it is only a natural right to overturn a governmentent. The government itself never acknowledges this right."

— Lysander Spooner,
Anarcho-Individualist (1808 ‐ 1887)
American political philosopher and abolitionist

"Intellectuals: put yourself at the service of the weak. Meditate upon this; this is the really urgent work."

— Fernand Pelloutier,
anarcho-syndicalist (1867 ‐ 1901)
French syndicalist and anarchist theorist.

"Fascism becomes less and less possible. We have to accept that we are moving towards some sort of anarchy."

— Alan Moore,
individualist anarchist
English writer known for graphic novels.

"Perhaps even more than constituted authority, it is social uniformity and sameness that harass the individual most."

— Emma Goldman,
anarcho-feminist (1869 ‐ 1940)
Influential anarchist, political activist, writer.

"The word anarchist seems to me too restrictive and I don't use it unless it is joined by the word communist."

— Daniel Guerin,
Anarcho-communist (1904 ‐ 1988)
French libertarian communist author

"Anarchy, today, is attack; it is war against every authority, every power, every state. In the future society, anarchy will be defence, the prevention of the re-establishment of any authority, any power, any state."

— Carlo Cafiero,
Anarcho-communist (1846 ‐ 1892)
Italian anarchist, champion of international socialism

"To us it means nothing that there is a Soviet Union somewhere in the world, for the sake of whose peace and tranquility the workers of Germany and China were sacrificed to Fascist barbarians by Stalin."

— Buenaventura Durruti,
anarcho-syndicalist (1896 ‐ 1936)
Influential Spanish anarchist and militant

"It is not the product of their labors to which the workers have a right. It is the satisfaction of their needs, whatever the nature of those needs."

— Joseph Dejacque,
Anarcho-Communist (1821 ‐ 1864)
French early anarchocommunist, poet and essayist

"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."

— Rudolf Rocker,
anarcho-syndicalist (1873 ‐ 1958)
Influential anarchist writer and speaker

"A man who does not think for himself does not think at all."

— Oscar Wilde,
anarcho-individualist (1854 ‐ 1900)
Irish author and poet known for his wit.

"True intellectual culture and the demand for higher interests in life does not become possible until man has achieved a certain material standard of living, which makes him capable of these."

— Rudolf Rocker,
anarcho-syndicalist (1873 ‐ 1958)
Influential anarchist writer and speaker

"It is through the inspiration of collective responsibility that the revolutionaries of all epochs and all schools have united their forces; it is upon this that they based their hope that their partial revolts - revolts which opened the path for the oppressed - were not in vain, that the exploited would understand their aspirations, would extract from them the applications suitable for the time and would use them to find new paths toward their emancipation."

— Nestor Makhno,
Anarcho-communist (1888 ‐ 1934)
Anarchist Revolutionary and commander of an independent army in Ukraine

"Revolution that divests itself of ethical values thereby lays the foundation of injustice, deceit, and oppression for the future society."

— Emma Goldman,
anarcho-feminist (1869 ‐ 1940)
Influential anarchist, political activist, writer.

"To be really medieval one should have no body. To be really modern one should have no soul. To be really Greek one should have no clothes."

— Oscar Wilde,
anarcho-individualist (1854 ‐ 1900)
Irish author and poet known for his wit.

"The paramount question of the day is not political, is not religious, but is economic. The crying-out demand of today is for a circle of principles that shall forever make it impossible for one man to control another by controlling the means of his existence."

— Voltairine De Cleyre,
Anarcho-Feminist (1866 ‐ 1912)
American anarchist, writer, and feminist

"A small group of comrades, a small group who simply meet in the evening to have a chat would not be an affinity group but a group of friends, pub-mates who meet in the evenings to talk about anything under the sun."

— Alfredo Bonanno,
Political Activist
Italian anarchist and writer

"The lunacy of the Soviet regime must be eliminated and replaced by the vital principles of the exploited workers, on a basis of solidarity, freedom and equal voice for each and every person."

— Nestor Makhno,
Anarcho-communist (1888 ‐ 1934)
Anarchist Revolutionary and commander of an independent army in Ukraine

"Revolutionary methods must be in tune with revolutionary aims."

— Emma Goldman,
anarcho-feminist (1869 ‐ 1940)
Influential anarchist, political activist, writer.

"Things tend to organise themselves. If there is any message from contemporary science, it is surely that."

— Alan Moore,
individualist anarchist
English writer known for graphic novels.

"The fact that the modern state is the organizational form of an authority founded upon arbitrariness and violence in the social life of toilers is independent of whether it may be "bourgeois" or "proletarian.""

— Nestor Makhno,
Anarcho-communist (1888 ‐ 1934)
Anarchist Revolutionary and commander of an independent army in Ukraine

"I believe in the human soul regnant over all laws which man has made or will make; I believe there is no peace now, and there will never be peace, so long as one rules over another; I believe in the total disintegration and dissolution of the principle and practice of authority; I am an anarchist, and if for this you condemn me, I stand ready to receive your condemnation."

— Voltairine De Cleyre,
Anarcho-Feminist (1866 ‐ 1912)
American anarchist, writer, and feminist

"The philosophy of anarchism is included in the word "Liberty"; yet it is comprehensive enough to include all things else that are conducive to progress."

— Lucy Parsons,
Anarcho-communist (1853 ‐ 1942)
Influential American labor organizer and radical socialist

"Someone has said that it requires less mental effort to condemn than to think."

— Emma Goldman,
anarcho-feminist (1869 ‐ 1940)
Influential anarchist, political activist, writer.

"Sexually progressive cultures gave us mathematics, literature, philosophy, civilization and the rest, while sexually restrictive cultures gave us the Dark Ages and the Holocaust."

— Alan Moore,
individualist anarchist
English writer known for graphic novels.

"Anarchists know that a long period of education must precede any great fundamental change in society, hence they do not believe in vote begging, nor political campaigns, but rather in the development of self-thinking individuals."

— Lucy Parsons,
Anarcho-communist (1853 ‐ 1942)
Influential American labor organizer and radical socialist

"A man's natural rights are his own, against the whole world; and any infringement of them is equally a crime, whether committed by one man, or by millions; whether committed by one man, calling himself a robber, (or by any other name indicating his true character,) or by millions, calling themselves a government."

— Lysander Spooner,
Anarcho-Individualist (1808 ‐ 1887)
American political philosopher and abolitionist

"The right to vote, or equal civil rights, may be good demands, but true emancipation begins neither at the polls nor in courts. It begins in woman's soul."

— Emma Goldman,
anarcho-feminist (1869 ‐ 1940)
Influential anarchist, political activist, writer.

"Most anarchists believe the coming change can only come through a revolution, because the possessing class will not allow a peaceful change to take place; still we are willing to work for peace at any price, except at the price of liberty."

— Lucy Parsons,
Anarcho-communist (1853 ‐ 1942)
Influential American labor organizer and radical socialist

"The view which sees in every capitalist only a profit machine may very well meet the demands of propaganda, but it is conceived much too narrowly and does not correspond to reality."

— Rudolf Rocker,
anarcho-syndicalist (1873 ‐ 1958)
Influential anarchist writer and speaker

"Capitalism and communism felt like they were always going to be around, but it turns out they were just two ways of ordering an industrial society. If you were looking for more fundamental human political poles, you'd take anarchy and fascism, for my money."

— Alan Moore,
individualist anarchist
English writer known for graphic novels.

"In an informal organization there is no question of synthesis."

— Alfredo Bonanno,
Political Activist
Italian anarchist and writer

"While we do preach perfect communism, it is not in the certainty or expectation of communism's being the social form of the future: it is in order to further men's education, and round it off as completely as possible, so that, by the time that the day of conflagration comes, they will have attained maximum emancipation."

— Fernand Pelloutier,
anarcho-syndicalist (1867 ‐ 1901)
French syndicalist and anarchist theorist.

"To my mind, the struggle for liberty is too great and the few steps we have gained have been won at too great a sacrifice, for the great mass of the people of this 20th century to consent to turn over to any political party the management of our social and industrial affairs."

— Lucy Parsons,
Anarcho-communist (1853 ‐ 1942)
Influential American labor organizer and radical socialist

"The people are asleep; they remain indifferent. They forge their own chains and do the bidding of their masters to crucify their Christs."

— Emma Goldman,
anarcho-feminist (1869 ‐ 1940)
Influential anarchist, political activist, writer.

""Communist society"; in the sense of a society organized exclusively on that single principle - could never exist. But all social systems, even economic systems like capitalism, have always been built on top of a bedrock of actually-existing communism."

— David Graeber,
Anarcho-Communist (1961 ‐ 2020)
Anthropologist, anarchist activist and author

"These revolutionaries, bare-necked politickers, have preserved with the imprint of the collar, the moral stain of servitude, the stiff neck of despotism."

— Joseph Dejacque,
Anarcho-Communist (1821 ‐ 1864)
French early anarchocommunist, poet and essayist

"Every person who ever thought he had a right to assert, and went boldly and asserted it, himself, or jointly with others that shared his convictions, was a direct actionist."

— Voltairine De Cleyre,
Anarcho-Feminist (1866 ‐ 1912)
American anarchist, writer, and feminist

"Each of you hungry tramps who read these lines, avail yourselves of those little methods of warfare which science has placed in the hands of the poor man, and you will become a power in this or any other land. Learn the use of explosives!"

— Lucy Parsons,
Anarcho-communist (1853 ‐ 1942)
Influential American labor organizer and radical socialist

"It cannot be sufficiently emphasized that revolution is in vain unless inspired by its ultimate ideal."

— Emma Goldman,
anarcho-feminist (1869 ‐ 1940)
Influential anarchist, political activist, writer.

"Wherever there is a man who exercizes authority, there is a man who resists authority."

— Oscar Wilde,
anarcho-individualist (1854 ‐ 1900)
Irish author and poet known for his wit.

"The most that a working-class party could do, even if its politicians remained honest, would be to form a strong faction in the legislatures which might, by combining its vote with one side or another, win certain political or economic palliatives."

— Voltairine De Cleyre,
Anarcho-Feminist (1866 ‐ 1912)
American anarchist, writer, and feminist

"Only the shallow know themselves."

— Oscar Wilde,
anarcho-individualist (1854 ‐ 1900)
Irish author and poet known for his wit.

"Libertarian communism is as yet only an approximation, and not a dogma of absolute truth."

— Daniel Guerin,
Anarcho-communist (1904 ‐ 1988)
French libertarian communist author

"The only generals that we should follow are the generals of the little tin soldiers."

— Georges Brassens,
anarcho-individualist (1921 ‐ 1981)
Anarchist, French singer-songwriter and poet

"After all, it means thirteen dollars per month, three meals a day, and a place to sleep. Yet even necessity is not sufficiently strong a factor to bring into the army an element of character and manhood."

— Emma Goldman,
anarcho-feminist (1869 ‐ 1940)
Influential anarchist, political activist, writer.

"Socialism and communism both demand a degree of joint effort and administration which would beget more regulation than is wholly consistent with ideal anarchism."

— Voltairine De Cleyre,
Anarcho-Feminist (1866 ‐ 1912)
American anarchist, writer, and feminist

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