We are at heart so profoundly anarchistic that the only form of state we can imagine living in is Utopian; and so cynical that the only Utopia we can believe in is authoritarian. — Lionel Trilling
Anarchy doesn't mean out of control; it means out of their control. — Jim Dodge
As for politics, I’m an anarchist. I hate governments and rules and fetters. Can’t stand caged animals. People must be free. — Charlie Chaplin
An anarchist society, far from being a remote ideal, has become a precondition for the practice of ecological principles. — Murray Bookchin
A consistent peace activist must be an anarchist. — Roderick T. Long
There is no greater evil than anarchy. — Sophocles
Democracy leads to anarchy, which is mob rule. — Plato
I think any good actor is an anarchist. They have to be. — Sam Rockwell
Anarchy is no guarantee that some people won't kill, injure, kidnap, defraud, or steal from others. Government is a guarantee that some will. — Gustave de Molinari
I define anarchist society as one where there is no legal possibility for coercive aggression against the person or property of any individual. — Murray Rothbard
The worst enemy of life, freedom and the common decencies is total anarchy; their second worst enemy is total efficiency. — Aldous Huxley
Anarchists prepare for social revolution and use every means - speech, writing, or deed, whichever is more to the point; to accelerate revolutionary development. — Johann Most
Short Anarchic Quotes
In the anarchic world of international politics, it is better to be Godzilla than Bambi. — John Mearsheimer
I want freedom, the right to self-expression , everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things. — Emma Goldman
It was in the black mirror of anarchism that surrealism first recognised itself. — Andre Breton
Jesus was an anarchist savior. That's what the Gospels tell us. — Ivan Illich
Government is best which governs least — Thomas Paine
An anarchist is someone who doesn't need a cop to make him behave. — Ammon Hennacy
Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion. — Emma Goldman
Oh judge! Your damn laws! The good people don't need them, and the bad people don't obey them. — Ammon Hennacy
As an anarchist, I cannot reconcile myself to any government. — Peter Kropotkin
Liberalism is to freedom as anarchism is to anarchy. — Ernst Junger
Anarch Quotes
Marx, Darwin and Freud are the three most crashing bores of the Western World. Simplistic popularization of their ideas has thrust our world into a mental straitjacket from which we can only escape by the most anarchic violence. — William Golding
Anarchism, to me, means not only the denial of authority, not only a new economy, but a revision of the principles of morality. It means the development of the individual as well as the assertion of the individual. It means self-responsibility, and not leader worship. — Voltairine de Cleyre
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 and weak, fishing nets in the hands of government. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Capitalism is the fullest expression of anarchism and anarchism is the fullest expression of capitalism. — Murray Rothbard
Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners. — Edward Abbey
I am an Anarchist not because I believe Anarchism is the final goal, but because there is no such thing as a final goal. — Rudolf Rocker
If we once and for so long lived in balance with nature and each other, we should be able to do so again. The catastrophe that's overtaking us has deep roots, but our previous state of natural anarchy reaches much further into our shared history . — John Zerzan
Today's terrorism is not the product of a traditional history of anarchism, nihilism, or fanaticism. It is instead the contemporary partner of globalization. — Jean Baudrillard
I am not going to claim that modern anarchism has any direct relation to Roman jurisprudence; but I do claim that it has its basis in the laws of nature rather than in the state of nature. — Herbert Read
When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called "the People's Stick." — Mikhail Bakunin
Anarchy Quotes
Lawlessness is lawlessness. Anarchy is anarchy is anarchy. Neither race nor color nor frustration is an excuse for either lawlessness or anarchy. — Thurgood Marshall
Mr. Blair, I look upon secession as anarchy. If I owned the four millions of slaves in the South, I would sacrifice them all to the Union; but how can I draw my sword upon Virginia, my native State? — Robert E. Lee
Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen. — Friedrich Nietzsche
But if the laws are to be so trampled upon with impunity, and a minority is to dictate to the majority, there is an end put at one stroke to republican government, and nothing but anarchy and confusion is to be expected thereafter. — George Washington
A concept is a brick. It can be used to build a courthouse of reason. Or it can be thrown through the window. — Gilles Deleuze
Life is the great indulgence - death the great abstinence. Therefore, make the most of life here and now! — Anton Szandor LaVey
To say that a bad government must be established for fear of anarchy is really saying that we should kill ourselves for fear of dying. — Richard Henry Lee
I think that Texas is forever ruined unless the citizens make a manly, energetic effort to save themselves from anarchy and confusion, which are the worst of all evils. Let us march like a band of brothers. — William B. Travis
Our government... teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. — Louis D. Brandeis
Someplace between apathy and anarchy is the stance of the thinking human being; he does embrace a cause, he does take a position, and can't allow it to become business as usual. Humanity is our business. — Rod Serling
Anarchism stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion and liberation of the human body from the coercion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government. It stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals. — Emma Goldman
Peter Kropotkin described Anarchism as the extreme left wing of socialism - a view with which I completely agree. One of my deepest concerns today is that the libertarian socialist core will be eroded by fashionable, post- modernist, spiritualist, mystic individualism. — Murray Bookchin
Freedom is based on the anarch’s awareness that he can kill himself. He carries this awareness around; it accompanies him like a shadow that he can conjure up. “A leap from this bridge will set me free. — Ernst Junger
Evolution is the root of atheism, of communism, nazism, behaviorism, racism, economic imperialism, militarism, libertinism, anarchism, and all manner of anti-Christian systems of belief and practice. — Henry M. Morris
Anarchy: It is NOT bombs, disorder or chaos. It is NOT robbery and murder. It is NOT a war of each against all. It is NOT a return to barbarism or to the wild state of man. Anarchism is the very opposite of all that. — Alexander Berkman
One rational voice is dumb: over a grave
The household of Impulse mourns one dearly loved.
Sad is Eros, builder of cities,
And weeping anarchic Aphrodite. — W. H. Auden
I see anarchism as the theoretical ideal to which we are all gradually evolving to a point where everybody can tell the truth to everybody else and nobody can get punished for it. That can only happen without hierarchy and without people having the authority to punish other people. — Robert Anton Wilson
In debates between anarchists and statists, the burden of proof clearly should rest on those who place their trust in the state. Anarchy's mayhem is wholly conjectural; the state's mayhem is undeniably, factually horrendous. — Robert Higgs
The candid camera is the greatest liar in the photographic family.... It is anarchic, naïve, and superficial. — Lincoln Kirstein
The partisan wants to change the law, the criminal break it; the anarch wants neither. He is not for or against the law. While not acknowledging the law, he does try to recognize it like the laws of nature, and he adjusts accordingly. — Ernst Junger
Creeds like pacifism or anarchism, which seem on the surface to imply a complete renunciation of power, rather encourage this habit of mind. For if you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics ... the more you are in the right (and) everybody else should be bullied into thinking otherwise. — George Orwell
Anarchism does not mean bloodshed; it does not mean robbery, arson, etc. These monstrosities are, on the contrary, the characteristic features of capitalism. Anarchism means peace and tranquility to all. — August Spies
Anarchism means voluntary co-operation instead of forced participation. It means harmony and order in place of interference and disorder. — Alexander Berkman
If you say that you reject violence when it exceeds the limits imposed by the needs of defense, they accuse you of pacifism, without understanding that violence is the whole essence of authoritarianism, just as the repudiation of violence is the whole essence of anarchism. — Errico Malatesta
For the anarch, little is changed when he strips off a uniform that he wore partly as fool's motley, partly as camouflage. It covers his spiritual freedom, which he will objectivate during such transitions. This distinguishes him from the anarchist, who, objectively unfree, starts raging until he is thrust into a more rigorous straitjacket. — Ernst Junger
Anarchy is... a form of government or constitution in which public and private consciousness, formed through the development of science and law, is alone sufficient to maintain order and guarantee all liberties. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Certainly the worker has nothing to lose by a change from government and capitalism to a condition of no government, of anarchy. — Alexander Berkman
The nearer we come to the full military suppression of the bourgeoisie, the more dangerous becomes to us the high flood of petty-bourgeois Anarchism. And the struggle against these elements cannot be waged with propaganda and agitation alone. ... The struggle must also be waged by applying force and compulsion. — Vladimir Lenin
Science is essentially an anarchic enterprise: theoretical anarchism is more humanitarian and more likely to encourage progress than its law-and-order alternatives. — Paul Feyerabend
In short, Anarchism means a condition or society where all men and women are free, and where all enjoy equally the benefits of an ordered and sensible life. — Alexander Berkman
Is anarchism desirable? Well, who does not seek freedom? What man, unless willing to declare himself in bondage, would care to call any control agreeable? Think about it! — Johann Most
Heath Ledger's performance in 'The Dark Knight' quite simply changed the game. He raised the bar not just for actors in superhero films, but young actors everywhere; for me. His performance was dark, anarchic, dizzying, free, and totally, thrillingly, dangerous. — Tom Hiddleston
Private enterprise manages better all that to which it is equal. Anarchism declares that private enterprise, whether individual or cooperative, is equal to all the undertakings of society. — Voltairine de Cleyre
Claude Debussy defined the guitar as an expressive harpsicord. I believe that is the best definition ever given of the Spanish guitar. This phrase is the starting point for my Concierto de Aranjuez Our guitar is the only survivor of the rich and anarchic instrumental wildlife of the Middle Ages. — Joaquin Rodrigo
Anarchism and anthropology go well together because anthropologists know that a society without a state is possible because so many exist. — David Graeber
In Conclusion
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