The ABC of Anarchism Quotes

“Violence is the method of ignorance, the weapon of the weak. The strong of heart and brain need no violence, for they are irresistible in their consciousness of being right.”
― Alexander Berkman, The ABC of Anarchism

“You don’t question the right of the government to kill, to confiscate and imprison. If a private person should be guilty of the things the government is doing all the time, you’d brand him a murderer, thief and scoundrel. But as long as the violence committed is “lawful,” you approve of it and submit to it. So it is not really violence that you object to, but to people using violence “unlawfully.”
― Alexander Berkman, ABC of Anarchism

“These days even mere attempts to improve capitalism are often called ‘Socialism,’ while in reality they are only reforms.”
― Alexander Berkman, The ABC of Anarchism

“In the name of patriotism you are ordered to stop being decent and honest, to cease being yourself, to suspend your own judgment, and give up your life; to become a will-less cog in a murderous machine, blindly obeying the order to kill, pillage, and destroy; to give up your father and mother, wife and child, and all that you love, and proceed to slaughter your fellow-men who never did you any harm — who are just as unfortunate and deluded victims of their masters as you are of yours.”
― Alexander Berkman, The ABC of Anarchism

“Think it over and see if it is not the law itself, the government which really creates crime by compelling people to live in conditions that make them bad. See how law and government uphold and protect the biggest crime of all, the mother of all crimes, the capitalistic wage system, and then proceeds to punish the poor criminal.”
― Alexander Berkman, Now & After: The ABC of Communist Anarchism

“...,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”
― Alexander Berkman, The ABC of Anarchism

“There is nothing more corrupting than compromise. One step in that direction calls for another, makes it necessary and compelling, and soon it swamps you with the force of a rolling snowball become a landslide.”
― Alexander Berkman, THE ABC OF ANARCHISM: What is Communist Anarchism

“That’s what is called democracy: to get the people to believe that they are their own rulers and that they themselves pass the laws of their country.”
― Alexander Berkman, THE ABC OF ANARCHISM: What is Communist Anarchism

“The reformer and the politician are both on the wrong track. To try to change men by law is just like trying to change your face by getting a new mirror. For men make laws, not laws men. The law merely reflects men as they are, as the mirror reflects your features.”
― Alexander Berkman, THE ABC OF ANARCHISM: What is Communist Anarchism

“It is not the wrongs and crimes punishable by law that cause the greatest evil in the world. It is the lawful wrongs and unpunishable crimes, justified and protected by law and government, that fill the earth with misery and want, with strife and conflict, with class struggles, slaughter, and destruction.”
― Alexander Berkman, THE ABC OF ANARCHISM: What is Communist Anarchism

“Our social institutions are founded on certain ideas; as long as the latter are generally believed, the institutions built on them are safe. Government remains strong because people think political authority and legal compulsion necessary. Capitalism will continue as long as such an economic system is considered adequate and just. The weakening of the ideas which support the evil and oppressive present-day conditions means the ultimate breakdown of government and capitalism. Progress consists in abolishing what man has outlived and substituting in its place a more suitable environment.”
― Alexander Berkman, THE ABC OF ANARCHISM: What is Communist Anarchism