Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Quotes

32 quotes in 537 categories

• In any given society the authority of man over man runs in inverse proportion to the intellectual development of that society.
• To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-ridden, regulated, penned up, indoctrinated, preached at, checked, appraised, seized, censured, commanded, by beings…
• Whoever lays his hand on me to govern me is a usurper and tyrant, and I declare him my enemy.
• To be governed ... is to be watched, inspected, directed, indoctrinated, numbered, estimated, regulated, commanded, controlled, law-driven, preached at, spied upon, censured, checked, valued, enrolled…
• The faults of which we ask you [God] the remittance, it is you who make us commit them; the traps of which we implore you…
• Democracy is nothing but the Tyranny of Majorities, the most abominable tyranny of all, for it is not based on the authority of a religion,…
• All my economic ideas as developed over twenty-five years can be summed up in the words: agricultural-industrial federation. All my political ideas boil down to…
• By no means. I have just given you my serious and well-considered profession of faith. Although a firm friend of order, I am (in the…
• The elements of justice are identical with those of algebra.
• AXIOM. — Property is the Right of Increase claimed by the Proprietor over any thing which he has stamped as his own.
• I stand ready to negotiate, but I want no part of laws: I acknowledge none; I protest against every order with which some authority may…
• To name a thing is easy: the difficulty is to discern it before its appearance.
• All men in their hearts, I say, bear witness to these truths; they need only to be made to understand it.
• As man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in anarchy.
• Laws: We know what they are, and what they are worth! They are spider webs for the rich and mighty, steel chains for the poor…
• We want property, but property restored to its proper limits, that is to say, free distribution of the products of labour, property minus usury!
• Liberty is not the daughter but the mother of order.
• Of my private life I have nothing to say: it does not concern others. I have always had little liking for autobiographies and have no…
• All men are equal and free: society by nature, and destination, is therefore autonomous and ungovernable. If the sphere of activity of each citizen is…
• To be governed is, under pretext of public utility and in the name of the general interest, to be laid under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited,…

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