Mikhail Bakunin

If God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish Him.

— Mikhail Bakunin

Religion is collective insanity.

— Mikhail Bakunin

We are materialists and atheists, and we glory in the fact…

— Mikhail Bakunin

Theology is the science of the divine lie.

— Mikhail Bakunin

Anarchism is "stateless socialism."

— Mikhail Bakunin

The urge to destroy is a creative urge.

— Mikhail Bakunin

Religion is a collective insanity.

— Mikhail Bakunin

“The real school for the people and for all grown men is life.”

— Mikhail Bakunin

If you took the most ardent revolutionary, vested him in absolute power, within a year he would be worse than the Tsar…

— Mikhail Bakunin

If there is a State, then there is domination, and in turn, there is slavery.

— Mikhail Bakunin

A person is strong only when he stands upon his own truth, when he speaks and acts from his deepest convictions.

— Mikhail Bakunin

Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie; and the workers want no lying.

— Mikhail Bakunin

When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called the People's Stick.

— Mikhail Bakunin

As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth.

— Mikhail Bakunin

“Beware of shearers, for where there is a flock there necessarily must be shepherds also to shear and devour it.”

— Mikhail Bakunin

Christianity is the complete negation of common sense and sound reason.

— Mikhail Bakunin

The peoples' revolution … will arrange its revolutionary organisation from the bottom up and from the periphery to the centre, in keeping…

— Mikhail Bakunin

All religions, with their gods, their demigods, and their prophets, their messiahs and their saints, were created by the credulous fancy of…

— Mikhail Bakunin

“Improve working conditions, render to labor what is justly due to labor, and thereby give the people security, comfort, and leisure Then,…

— Mikhail Bakunin

There are but three ways for the populace to escape its wretched lot. The first two are by the routes of the…

— Mikhail Bakunin

Revolution requires extensive and widespread destruction, a fecund and renovating destruction, since in this way and only this way are new worlds…

— Mikhail Bakunin

All religions are cruel, all founded on blood; for all rest principally on the idea of sacrifice - that is, on the…

— Mikhail Bakunin

By striving to do the impossible, man has always achieved what is possible. Those who have cautiously done no more than they…

— Mikhail Bakunin

To my utter despair I have discovered, and discover every day anew, that there is in the masses no revolutionary idea or…

— Mikhail Bakunin

“Equality and justice demand only a society so organized that every single human being will—from birth through adolescence and maturity—find therein equal…

— Mikhail Bakunin

That in order to achieve the triumph of liberty, justice and peace in the international relations of Europe, and to render civil…

— Mikhail Bakunin

“I am a passionate seeker after Truth and a not less passionate enemy of the malignant fictions used by the "Party of…

— Mikhail Bakunin

The privilege of ruling would be in the hands of the skilled and the learned, with a wide scope left for profitable…

— Mikhail Bakunin

“There is not, there cannot be, a State without religion. Take the freest States in the world—the United States of America or…

— Mikhail Bakunin

We must overthrow the material and moral conditions of our present-day life. . . . We must first purify our atmosphere and…

— Mikhail Bakunin

Bourgeois patriotism, as I view it, is only a very shabby, very narrow, very mercenary, and deeply antihuman passion, having for its…

— Mikhail Bakunin

The truth is that the whole life of the worker is simply a continuous and dismaying succession of terms of serfdom -…

— Mikhail Bakunin

What is freedom? What is slavery? Does man's freedom consist in revolting against all laws? We say No, in so far as…

— Mikhail Bakunin

“The supreme law of the State is self-preservation at any cost. And since all States, ever since they came to exist upon…

— Mikhail Bakunin

“The idea of humanity becomes more and more of a power in the civilized world, and, owing to the expansion and increasing…

— Mikhail Bakunin

A person is strong only when he stands upon his own truth, when he speaks and acts with his deepest convictions. Then,…

— Mikhail Bakunin

“Human labor, in general, is still divided into two exclusive categories: the first—solely intellectual and managerial—includes the scientists, artists, engineers, inventors, accountants,…

— Mikhail Bakunin

“The people are committed to ruinous policies, all without noticing. They have neither the experience nor the time to study all these…

— Mikhail Bakunin

“Slavery may change its form or its name—its essence remains the same. Its essence may be expressed in these words: to be…

— Mikhail Bakunin

“Representative democracy, however, harmonizes marvelously with the capitalist economic system. This new statist system, basing itself on the alleged sovereignty of the…

— Mikhail Bakunin