"He who refuses to submit is at once labelled "queer," "different," and decried as a disturbing element in the comfortable stagnancy of modern life."
"The task of teachers, those obscure soldiers of civilization, is to give to the people the intellectual means to revolt."
"Anarchy is the obliteration of property."
"It is obvious that in calling on anarchists to organise on the basis of a definite program, we are not taking away as such the right of anarchists of other tendencies to organise as they think fit."
"Our cause cannot expect me to become a nun and the movement will not be turned into a cloister."
"As you have undertaken to destroy these races, not inferior, but merely latecomer, you tend in like manner to destroy the working class, which you also qualify as inferior."
"Without the rule of one, there would be light, there would be truth, there would be justice. The rule of one is a crime."
"When lifestyle anarchists call for autonomy rather than freedom, they thereby forfeit the rich social connotations of freedom."
"Those who would like to see society transformed without shocks must make up their minds to surrender the hope; it is impossible. Ideas in the course of evolving lead to revolution."
"Certainly, it is already no longer possible, in my view, to call oneself an anarchist without adding a qualifying adjective to distinguish oneself from lifestyle anarchists."
"The Bolshevik government revealed itself to be powerless in the face of a bureaucracy which is super-abundant, parasitic, despotic and dishonest."
"If revolution results only in a change of dictatorship, then it is hardly worth while."
"May the enemies of the people be terrified at the unexpected awakening."
"If today we fall without compromising, we can be sure of victory tomorrow."
"One can lose one's illusions about everything and about everyone, but not about what one affirms with one's moral conscience."
"No one who knew that the flag consisted of a bit of black stuff on the end of a broomstick would believe it, and no more do you, sir. I wished to show that the laborers were dying of hunger and in need of work. It is the flag of strikes and famines."
"Disorganization is the twin sister of irresponsibility, and together they lead to impoverished ideas and futile practice."
"Anarchism is the great liberator of man from the phantoms that have held him captive; it is the arbiter and pacifier of the two forces for individual and social harmony."
"The point social ecology emphasizes is not that moral and spiritual persuasion and renewal are meaningless or unnecessary; they are necessary and can be educational. But modern capitalism is structurally amoral and hence impervious to moral appeals."
"It is from the love of humanity that we are revolutionaries: it is not our fault if history has forced on us this distressing necessity."
"The authoritarian principle has been proven bankrupt by the experience of the Russian Revolution."
"As regards the mestizo population [of mixed Indian and Spanish heritage], which is the majority of the people of Mexico - with the exception of those who inhabited the great cities and large towns - they held the forests, lands, and bodies of water in common, just as the indigenous peoples did."
"True, we have no conscription; that is, men are not usually forced to enlist in the army, but we have developed a far more exacting and rigid force - necessity."
"Today is the parent of tomorrow. The present casts its shadow far into the future."
"Masters aren't necessary, these people whose idleness is maintained by our labor; everyone must make himself useful to society, by which I mean work according to his ability and his aptitude."
"Ironically, the world idealized by primitivists would actually preclude the radical individualism celebrated by the individualist heirs of Max Stirner."
"But though egoism or altruism, separately, each pushed to its extreme, is pernicious to the individual and society, united they are resolved into a third term, which is the law of future societies. This law is solidarity."
"Free love? As if love is anything but free! Yes, love is free; it can dwell in no other atmosphere."
"Like it or not, the future of life on this planet pivots on the future of society."
"It is society that makes criminals and you, jury members, instead of striking you should use your intelligence and your strength to transform society. In one fell swoop you'll suppress all crime. And your work, in attacking causes, will be greater and more fruitful than your justice, which belittles itself in punishing its effects."
"While judging me judge all the unfortunate who poverty, combined with natural pride, made criminals, and who wealth or ease would have made honest men. An intelligent society would have made of them men like any other!"
"Revolution is indeed a violent process."
"The revolution will be the flowering of humanity as love is the flowering of the heart."
"For us, everything that seeks to destroy economic and political oppression, all that which serves to raise the moral and intellectual level of human beings, to give them the consciousness of their rights and of their forces and to persuade them to do their business by themselves, all that provokes hatred against oppression and love between people, brings us closer to our aim."
"In its mad passion for power, the communist state even sought to strengthen and deepen the very ideas and conceptions which the Revolution had come to destroy."
"The sovereign, self-sufficient "individual" has always been a precarious basis upon which to anchor a left libertarian outlook."
"Every daring attempt to make a great change in existing conditions, every lofty vision of new possibilities for the human race, has been labelled utopian."
"I repeat that I am a political prisoner. The prosecution, whatever the attorney general may say, is political and nothing else."
"Side neither with nations nor with parties. Be neither Russians, Poles nor Slavs. Rather, be men who hunger for truth, free from any thoughts of particular interests, and from speculative ideas concerning the Chinese, Africans or Europeans. The patriot always ends up hating the foreigner, and loses the sense of justice that once kindled his enthusiasm."
"It is the task of all comrades to think, study and prepare - and to do so with all speed and thoroughly because the times are "dynamic" and we must be ready for what might happen."
"Since it seems that every heart that beats for freedom has no right to anything but a little slug of lead, I demand my share. If you let me live, I shall never cease to cry for vengeance."
"We love to have agents provocateurs in the party, because they always propose the most revolutionary motions."
"One courageous act has sufficed to upset in a few days the entire governmental machinery, to make the colossus tremble."
"Our authority is our own conscience. She is the one that pushes us, she is our spur. We are slaves, but to our duty."
"The Mexican people hate, by instinct, authority and the bourgeoisie."
"Anarchism is the usher of science - the master of ceremonies to all forms of truth. It would remove all barriers between the human being and natural development."
"Was traditional anarchism, idealistic and prone to splits, not destined to fail as soon as it found itself confronted by an implacable social struggle, for which it was not in the least way prepared?"
"It is economic slavery, the savage struggle for a crumb, that has converted mankind into wolves and sheep."
"The anarchist ideal is large and rich in its diversity. Nevertheless, the role of anarchists in the social struggle of the masses is extremely modest. Their task is to help the masses take the right road in the struggle and in the construction of the new society."
"What we want, therefore, is the complete destruction of the domination and exploitation of man by man; we want men united as brothers by a conscious and desired solidarity, all cooperating voluntarily for the well-being of all; we want society to be constituted for the purpose of supplying everybody with the means for achieving the maximum well-being, the maximum possible moral and spiritual development; we want bread, freedom, love, and science - for everybody."
"Anarchy is not perfection, it is not the absolute ideal which like the horizon recedes as fast as we approach it; but it is the way open to all progress and all improvements for the benefit of everybody."
"We do not doubt that, if the revolution broke out in several European countries, anarchists would suffer the same defeat because they are no less - if not even more so - divided on the plan of ideas and organization."
"Hate does not produce love; we will not renew the world by hate."
"All that which is not liberty is against liberty. Liberty is not a thing that can be allocated."
"The police are making more anarchists than I could do in ten years."
"Anarchism was born in a moral revolt against social injustice."
"It is characteristic of theistic "tolerance" that no one really cares what the people believe in, just so they believe or pretend to believe."
"Our being is becoming, not stasis. Our science is utopia, our reality is eros, our desire is revolution."
"It is especially in the domain of ethics that the dominating importance of the mutual aid principle appears in full."
"A different conception of society, very different from that which now prevails, is in process of formation."
"The greatest bulwark of capitalism is militarism."
"Today the anarchists are numerous enough to overthrow the current state of things, and if that hasn't yet happened, it's because we must complete the education of the followers, give birth in them to the energy and the firm will to assist in the realization of their projects."
"All that's left to be done is that the workers take possession of the factory, the workshop, the mine, the foundry, the railroad, the ship, in a word, everything - that they recognize no bosses of any type."
"Always and everywhere among us, practical problems have been resolved by a majority of votes."
