Mikhail Bakunin Quotes
Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie; and the workers want no lying.
Children do not constitute anyone's property: they are neither the property of their parents nor even of society. They belong only to their own future freedom.
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, but because he freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it.
In antiquity slaves were, in all honesty called slaves. In the middle ages, they took the name of serfs. Nowadays they are called wage earners.
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.
A Boss in Heaven is the best excuse for a boss on earth, therefore If God did exist, he would have to be abolished.
From the naturalistic point of view, all men are equal. There are only two exceptions to this rule of naturalistic equality: geniuses and idiots.
In every State, the government is nothing but a permanent conspiracy on the part of the minority against the majority, which it enslaves and fleeces.
All religions are cruel, all founded on blood; for all rest principally on the idea of sacrifice - that is, on the perpetual immolation of humanity to the insatiable vengeance of divinity.
When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called "the People's Stick."
The idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive negation of human liberty and necessarily ends in the enslavement of mankind both in theory and practice.
A person is strong only when he stands upon his own truth, when he speaks and acts from his deepest convictions.
No theory, no ready-made system, no book that has ever been written will save the world. I cleave to no system. I am a true seeker.
Even the most wretched individual of our present society could not exist and develop without the cumulative social efforts of countless generations.
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 never taken a single step forward.
The right to unite freely and to separate freely is the first and most important of all political rights.
If there is a State, there must be domination of one class by another and, as a result, slavery; the State without slavery is unthinkable - and this is why we are the enemies of the State.
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.
If you took the most ardent revolutionary, vested him in absolute power, within a year he would be worse than the Tsar himself.
Do you want to make it impossible for anyone to oppress his fellow-man? Then make sure that no one shall possess power.
Real humanity presents a mixture of all that is most sublime and beautiful with all that is vilest and most monstrous in the world.
There are but three ways for the populace to escape its wretched lot. The first two are by the routes of the wine-shop or the church; the third is by that of the social revolution.
The peoples' revolution... will arrange its revolutionary organisation from the bottom up and from the periphery to the centre, in keeping with the principle of liberty.
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 inclination and a great respect for the Rothschilds.
Whoever says State necessarily says domination, and, consequently, slavery; a State without slavery, open or concealed, is inconceivable: that is why we are enemies of the State.
Revolution requires extensive and widespread destruction, a fecund and renovating destruction, since in this way and only this way are new worlds born
It is the characteristic of privilege and of every privileged position to kill the mind and heart of men. The privileged man, whether practically or economically, is a man depraved in mind and heart.
Liberty means that a man is recognized as free and treated as free by those who surround him.
I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure.
I am conscious of my inability to grasp, in all its details and positive developments, any very large portion of human knowledge.
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.
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.
Intellectual slavery, of whatever nature it may be, will always have as a natural result both political and social slavery.
If God is, man is a slave; now, man can and must be free; then, God does not exist. I defy anyone whomsoever to avoid this circle; now, therefore, let all choose.