Anarchy Quotes

“In all times and in all places, whatever may be the name that the government takes, whatever has been its origin, or its organization, its essential function is always that of oppressing and exploiting the masses, and of defending the oppressors and exploiters. Its principal characteristic and indispensable instruments are the bailiff and the tax collector, the soldier and the prison. And to these are necessarily added the time-serving priest or teacher, as the case may be, supported and protected by the government, to render the spirit of the people servile and make them docile under the yoke.”
― Errico Malatesta, Anarchy

“Governments oppress mankind in two ways, either directly, by brute force, that is physical violence, or indirectly, by depriving them of the means of subsistence and thus reducing them to helplessness at discretion.”
― Errico Malatesta, Anarchy

“If today we fall without lowering our colors, our cause is certain of victory tomorrow.”
― Errico Malatesta, Anarchy

“Anarchy is synonymous with Socialism. Because both signify the abolition of exploitation and of the domination of man over man, whether maintained by the force of arms or by the monopolization of the means of life.”
― Errico Malatesta, Anarchy

“Man, like all living beings, adapts and habituates himself to the conditions in which he lives, and transmits by inheritance his acquired habits. Thus being born and having lived in bondage, being the descendant of a long line of slaves, man, when he began to think, believed that slavery was an essential condition of life; and liberty seemed to him an impossible thing.”
― Errico Malatesta, Anarchy

“A society without a government, which would act by free, voluntary co-operation, trusting entirely to the spontaneous action of those interested, and founded altogether on solidarity and sympathy, is certainly, they say, a very beautiful ideal, but, like all ideals, it is a castle in the air.”
― Errico Malatesta, Anarchy

“The one essential is that a society be constituted in which the exploitation and domination of man by man are impossible. That the society, in other words, be such that the means of existence and development of labor be free and open to every one, and all be able to co-operate, according to their wishes and their knowledge, in the organization of social life. Under such conditions, everything will necessarily be performed in compliance with the needs of all, according to the knowledge and possibilities of the moment. And everything will improve with the increase of knowledge and power.”
― Errico Malatesta, Anarchy

“Man has two necessary fundamental characteristics, the instinct of his own preservation, without which no being could exist, and the instinct of the preservation of his species, without which no species could have been formed or have continued to exist.”
― Errico Malatesta, Anarchy

“Now numbers are the sole criterion; and numbers are certainly no proof of reason, justice or capacity.”
― Errico Malatesta, Anarchy

“For those who govern find it necessary to occupy themselves with things which they do not understand, and, above all, to waste the greater part of their energy in keeping themselves in power, striving to satisfy their friends, holding the discontented in check, and mastering the rebellious.”
― Errico Malatesta, Anarchy

“Anarchists present a new method; the free initiative of all and free agreement; then, after the revolutionary abolition of private property, every one will have equal power to dispose of social wealth.”
― Errico Malatesta, Anarchy

“The methods from which the different non-anarchist parties expect, or say they do, the greatest good of one and all can be reduced to two, the authoritarian and the so-called liberal. The former entrusts to a few the management of social life and leads to the exploitation and oppression of the masses by the few. The latter relies on free individual enterprise and proclaims, if not the abolition, at least the reduction of governmental functions to an absolute minimum; but because it respects private property and is entirely based on the principle of each for himself and therefore of competition between men, the liberty it espouses is for the strong and for the property owners to oppress and exploit the weak, those who have nothing; and far from producing harmony, tends to increase even more the gap between rich and poor and it too leads to exploitation and domination, in other words, to authority. This second method, that is liberalism, is in theory a kind of anarchy without socialism, and therefore is simply a lie, for freedom is not possible without equality, and real anarchy cannot exist without solidarity, without socialism. The criticism liberals direct at government consists only of wanting to deprive it of some of its functions and to call on the capitalists to fight it out among themselves, but it cannot attack the repressive functions which are of its essence: for without the gendarme the property owner could not exist, indeed the government’s powers of repression must perforce increase as free competition results in more discord and inequality.”
― Errico Malatesta, Anarchy

“The government, or as some call it, the justiciary State, as moderator in the social struggle and the impartial administrator of the public interest, is a lie — an illusion, an utopia never achieved and never to be realised.”
― Errico Malatesta, Anarchy

“The one essential is that a society be constituted in which the exploitation and domination of man by man are impossible. That the society, in other words, be such that the means of existence and development of labor be free and open to every one, and all be able to co-operate, according to their wishes and their knowledge, in the organization of social life.”
― Errico Malatesta, Anarchy

“Pod wyrazem „państwo” rozumie się też wyższą administrację kraju, zarząd centralny różniący się od zarządów prowincji i gmin, z tego też powodu niektórzy myślą, że anarchiści chcą tylko decentralizacji terytorialnej, zostawiając nienaruszonym pierwiastek rządowy i tym sposobem mieszają anarchizm z kantonalizmem i komunizmem.”
― Errico Malatesta, Anarchy

“Jeżeli do naturalnych skutków przyzwyczajenia dodamy wychowanie otrzymywane od panów, księży, nauczycieli itd., którzy mają swój interes w tym, żeby nauczać, iż istnienie rządu i panów jest konieczne, jeśli dodamy jeszcze wpływ sędziego i policjanta, którzy usiłują zmusić do milczenia każdego, kto inaczej myśli i kto by chciał myśl swoją upowszechnić, łatwo zrozumiemy wtedy, jakim sposobem w mało rozwiniętym umyśle mas zakorzeniło się przekonanie o konieczności istnienia pana i rządu.”
― Errico Malatesta, Anarchie

“Urodzony i żyjący w poddaństwie, potomek całych pokoleń niewolników - człowiek, gdy zaczął myśleć, wierzył że poddaństwo jest niezbędnym warunkiem życia: swoboda wydawała mu się niemożliwą. Takim sposobem robotnik, którego płaca czyli zarobek w ciągu bardzo długiego czasu była zależna od dobrej lub złej woli swego ,,pana" - pracodawcy, którzy przyzwyczaja go uważać siebie za zależnego od ,,łaski" tych, którzy posiadają ziemię i kapitał - zaczynał wierzyć w końcu, że pracodawca daje mu jeść; taki robotnik nieświadomy mówił naiwnie: jakbym ja mógł żyć, gdyby panowie i bogacze wcale nie istnieli?”
― Errico Malatesta, Anarchie