Mikhail Bakunin Quotes

By striving to do the impossible, man has always achieved what is possible. Those who have cautiously done no more than they believed possible have never taken a single step forward.

We revolutionary anarchists are the enemies of all forms of State and State organisations ... wethink that all State rule, all governments being by their very nature placed outside the mass of thepeople, must necessarily seek to subject it to customs and purposes entirely foreign to it. Wetherefore declare ourselves to be foes ... of all State organisations as such, and believe that thepeople can only be happy and free, when, organised from below by means of its own autonomousand completely free associations, without the supervision of any guardians, it will create its ownlife.

Do you want to make it impossible for anyone to oppress his fellow-man? Then make sure that no one shall possess power.

A person is strong only when he stands upon his own truth, when he speaks and acts with his deepest convictions. Then, whatever the situation he may be in, he always knows what he must say and do. He may fall, but he cannot bring shame upon himself or his cause. If we seek the liberation of the people by means of a lie, we will surely grow confused, go astray, and loose sight of our objective, and if we have any influence at all on the people we will lead them astray as well—in other words, we will be acting in the spirit of reaction and to its benefit.

A jealous lover of human liberty, and deeming it the absolute condition of all that we admire and respect in humanity, I reverse the phrase of Voltaire, and say that, if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him.

The passion for destruction is also a creative passion

The urge to destroy is also a creative urge.

People go to church for the same reasons they go to a tavern: to stupefy themselves, to forget their misery, to imagine themselves, for a few minutes anyway, free and happy.-- Circular Letter to My Friends in Italy