Alexander Berkman quotes

Man's inhumanity to man is not the last word. The truth lies deeper. It is economic slavery, the savage struggle for a crumb, that has converted mankind into wolves and sheep. (Alexander Berkman)
It is the system, rather than individuals, that is the source of pollution and degradation. My prison-house environment is but another manifestation of the Midas-hand, whose cursed touch turns everything to the brutal service of Mammon. View quote
Alexander Berkman
War means blind obedience, unthinking stupidity, brutish callousness, wanton destruction, and irresponsible murder. View quote
Alexander Berkman
Inhumanity is the keynote of stupidity in power. View quote
Alexander Berkman
War paralyzes your courage and deadens the spirit of true manhood. View quote
Alexander Berkman
The social revolution means much more than the reorganization of conditions only: it means the establishment of new human values and social relationships, a changed attitude of man to man, as of one free and independent to his equal; it means a different spirit in individual and collective life, and that spirit cannot be born overnight. It is a spirit to be cultivated, to be nurtured and reared, as the most delicate flower it is, for indeed it is the flower of a new and beautiful existence. View quote
Alexander Berkman
If your object is to secure liberty, you must learn to do without authority and compulsion. View quote
Alexander Berkman
Once on the road of terrorism, the State necessarily becomes estranged from the people. View quote
Alexander Berkman
Liberty is an empty sound as long as you are kept in bondage economically. [...] Freedom means that you have the right to do a certain thing; but if you have no opportunity to do it, that right is sheer mockery. The opportunity lies in your economic condition, whatever the political situation may be. No political rights can be of the least use to the man who is compelled to slave all his life to keep himself and family from starvation. View quote
Alexander Berkman
it is impossible to know the number of individuals whose political awakening-as with Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, long-time revolutionary stalwarts of the next generation came from the Haymarket Affair. View quote
Alexander Berkman
While Goldman took the anarchist message to middle-class audiences, Berkman retained his faith in the revolutionary potential of the working class. (Alexander Berkman)
Life was difficult for everyone in Germany after World War I and particularly so for the political refugees. Many of us felt that we had to leave Germany. A number of us went to France, including Sasha and Emma. View quote
Alexander Berkman
The acute physical pain of his prostate gland, his economic difficulties, his precarious status as a political refugee, all combined to cause our warm, genial comrade, who had always been so full of life, to end his sufferings and commit suicide. View quote
Alexander Berkman