Mikhail Bakunin

Even the most wretched individual of our present society could not exist and develop without the cumulative social efforts of countless generations.

A jealous lover of human liberty, 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.

Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.

I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure.

I am sure that, on the one hand, the Rothschilds appreciate the merits of Marx, and that on the other hand, Marx feels an instinctive inclination and a great respect for the Rothschilds.

He who desires to worship God must harbor no childish illusions about the matter but bravely renounce his liberty and humanity.

The freedom of all is essential to my freedom.

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.

From the naturalistic point of view, all men are equal. There are only two exceptions to this rule of naturalistic equality: geniuses and idiots.

Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie; and the workers want no lying.