Mikhail Bakunin Quotes

81 quotes in 1156 categories

• From the naturalistic point of view, all men are equal. There are only two exceptions to this rule of naturalistic equality: geniuses and idiots.
• By striving to do the impossible, man has always achieved what is possible. Those who have cautiously done no more than they believed possible have…
• Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does good not because he is forced to do so,…
• A Boss in Heaven is the best excuse for a boss on earth, therefore If God did exist, he would have to be abolished.
• Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie; and the workers want no lying.
• I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting…
• People go to church for the same reasons they go to a tavern: to stupefy themselves, to forget their misery, to imagine themselves, for a…
• If there is a State, then there is domination, and in turn, there is slavery.
• This contradiction lies here: they wish God, and they wish humanity. They persist in connecting two terms which, once separated, can come together again only…
• Everything will pass, and the world will perish but the Ninth Symphony will remain.
• Powerful states can maintain themselves only by crime, little states are virtuous only by weakness.
• The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we…
• To revolt is a natural tendency of life. Even a worm turns against the foot that crushes it. In general, the vitality and relative dignity…
• Where the state begins, individual liberty ceases, and vice versa.
• I am sure that, on the one hand, the Rothschilds appreciate the merits of Marx, and that on the other hand, Marx feels an instinctive…
• Does it follow that I reject all authority? Perish the thought. In the matter of boots, I defer to the authority of the boot-maker.
• To my utter despair I have discovered, and discover every day anew, that there is in the masses no revolutionary idea or hope or passion.
• Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.
• He who desires to worship God must harbor no childish illusions about the matter but bravely renounce his liberty and humanity.
• The privileged man, whether he be privileged politically or economically, is a man depraved in intellect and heart.

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