Mikhail Bakunin quotes - page 2

In order to touch the heart and gain the confidence, the assent, the adhesion, and the co-operation of the illiterate legions of the proletariat - and the vast majority of proletarians unfortunately still belong in this category - it is necessary to begin to speak to those workers not of the general sufferings of the international proletariat as a whole but of their particular, daily, altogether private misfortunes. It is necessary to speak to them of their own trade and the conditions of their work in the specific locality where they live; of the harsh conditions and long hours of their daily work, of the small pay, the meanness of their employer, the high cost of living, and how impossible it is for them properly to support and bring up a family. (Mikhail Bakunin)
Of escape there are but three methods - two chimerical and a third real. The first two are the dram-shop and the church, debauchery of the body or debauchery of the mind; the third is social revolution. View quote
Mikhail Bakunin
Revolution requires extensive and widespread destruction, a fecund and renovating destruction, since in this way and only this way are new worlds born. View quote
Mikhail Bakunin
Nothing, in fact, is as universal or as ancient as the iniquitous and absurd; truth and justice, on the contrary, are the least universal, the youngest features in the development of human society. View quote
Mikhail Bakunin
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. View quote
Mikhail Bakunin
We must make a very precise distinction between the official and consequently dictatorial prerogatives of society organized as a state, and of the natural influence and action of the members of a non-official, non-artificial society. View quote
Mikhail Bakunin
Freedom is the absolute right of every human being to seek no other sanction for his actions but his own conscience, to determine these actions solely by his own will, and consequently to owe his first responsibility to himself alone. View quote
Mikhail Bakunin
All religions, with their gods, their demigods, and their prophets, their messiahs and their saints, were created by the credulous fancy of men who had not attained the full development and full possession of their faculties. Consequently, the religious heaven is nothing but a mirage in which man, exalted by ignorance and faith, discovers his own image, but enlarged and reversed - that is, divinized. The history of religion, of the birth, grandeur, and decline of the gods who have succeeded one another in human belief, is nothing, therefore, but the development of the collective intelligence and conscience of mankind. View quote
Mikhail Bakunin
Unity is the great goal toward which humanity moves irresistibly. But it becomes fatal, destructive of the intelligence, the dignity, the well-being of individuals and peoples whenever it is formed without regard to liberty, either by violent means or under the authority of any theological, metaphysical, political, or even economic idea. That patriotism which tends toward unity without regard to liberty is an evil patriotism, always disastrous to the popular and real interests of the country it claims to exalt and serve. Often, without wishing to be so, it is a friend of reaction – an enemy of the revolution, i.e., the emancipation of nations and men. View quote
Mikhail Bakunin
There can be no revolution without widespread and passionate destruction, a destruction salutary and fruitful precisely because out of it, and by means of it alone, new worlds are born and arise. View quote
Mikhail Bakunin
The modern state, in its essence and objectives, is necessarily a military state, and a military state necessarily becomes an aggressive state. If it does not conquer others it will itself be conquered, for the simple reason that wherever force exists, it absolutely must be displayed or put into action. From this again it follows that the modern state must without fail be huge and powerful; that is the indispensable condition for its preservation. (Mikhail Bakunin)
The people should never be deceived, under any pretext or for any purpose. It would not only be criminal but detrimental to the revolutionary cause, for deception of any kind, by its very nature, is shortsighted, petty, narrow, always sewn with rotten threads, so that it inevitably tears and is exposed. View quote
Mikhail Bakunin
Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will. View quote
Mikhail Bakunin
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. View quote
Mikhail Bakunin
Everything will pass, and the world will perish but the Ninth Symphony will remain. View quote
Mikhail Bakunin
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 my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation. View quote
Mikhail Bakunin
A Boss in Heaven is the best excuse for a boss on earth, therefore If God did exist, he would have to be abolished. View quote
Mikhail Bakunin
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. View quote
Mikhail Bakunin
Where the state begins, individual liberty ceases, and vice versa. View quote
Mikhail Bakunin
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. View quote
Mikhail Bakunin
The privileged man, whether he be privileged politically or economically, is a man depraved in intellect and heart. (Mikhail Bakunin)
I am conscious of my inability to grasp, in all its details and positive developments, any very large portion of human knowledge. View quote
Mikhail Bakunin
If there is a State, then there is domination, and in turn, there is slavery. View quote
Mikhail Bakunin
From the naturalistic point of view, all men are equal. There are only two exceptions to this rule of naturalistic equality: geniuses and idiots. View quote
Mikhail Bakunin
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. View quote
Mikhail Bakunin