"Do I want to propose my own system? Not at all! I am an advocate of all systems."
"We won the revolution, what we lost was the war."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Freedom must be so extensive that it includes the right not to be free."
"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."
""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."
"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."
"While governments are subjected to the principle of free experimentation, to free competition, they will improve and perfect themselves on their own. No more aloofness, up in the clouds, which only hides their emptiness. Success for them will entirely depend upon them doing it better and cheaper than the others do."
"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."
"For a long time I have been fascinated by the thought how wonderful it would be if at last, in public opinion on the succession of political and social institutions, the fateful term "one after another" would be replaced through the very simple and self-evident "simultaneously.""
"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."
"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."
"Let us not lose time asking an imaginary god for what only human effort can obtain for us."
"Let us not lose time asking others to give us what we can obtain ourselves."
"Indeed, in many cases, maliciousness and stupidity will put many obstacles in the road of the new idea. That is the reason why hard struggles must be fought for unconditional mutual tolerance, until it is finally achieved. Only from then on will everything proceed automatically, science will bloom and advance, because the necessary foundation for every progress, namely experimental freedom and free research have been achieved."
"The domination of man by the creation of man is even more ridiculous than the domination of man by man."
"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."
"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."
