Search quotes by author:    A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 


Mikhail Bakunin Quotes


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 few minutes anyway, free and happy.

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

Powerful states can maintain themselves only by crime, little states are virtuous only by weakness.

Such a faith would be fatal to my reason, to my liberty, and even to the success of my undertakings; it would immediately transform me into a stupid slave, an instrument of the will and interests of others.

The communism of Marx seeks a strong state centralization, and where this exists, there the parasitic Jewish nation - which speculates upon the labor of people - will always find the means for its existence.

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 will be slaves on earth.

The freedom of all is essential to my freedom.

The liberty of man consists solely in this, that he obeys the laws of nature because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been imposed upon him externally by any foreign will whatsoever, human or divine, collective or individual.

The passion for destruction is also a creative passion.

The privilege of ruling would be in the hands of the skilled and the learned, with a wide scope left for profitable crooked deals carried on by the Jews, who would be attracted by the enormous extension of the international speculations of the national banks.

The privileged man, whether he be privileged politically or economically, is a man depraved in intellect and heart.

Thence results, for science as well as for industry, the necessity of the division and association of labor. I receive and I give - such is human life. Each directs and is directed in his turn.

Therefore, if God existed, only in one way could he serve human liberty - by ceasing to exist.

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 to destroy each other.

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.

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 of an animal can be measured by the intensity of its instinct to revolt.

Where the state begins, individual liberty ceases, and vice versa.