The liberty of man consists solely in this: that he obeys natural laws because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been externally imposed upon him by any extrinsic will whatever, divine or human, collective or individual.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
No theory, no ready-made system, no book that has ever been written will save the world. I cleave to no system. I am a true seeker.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
A person is strong only when he stands upon his own truth, when he speaks and acts from 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 causes.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
In a word, we reject all legislation, all authority, and all privileged, licensed, official, and legal influence, even though arising from universal suffrage, convinced that it can turn only to the advantage of a dominant minority of exploiters against the interest of the immense majority in subjection to them. This is the sense in which we are really Anarchists.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
Anyone who makes plans for after the revolution is a reactionary.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
Everything that lives, does so under the categorical condition of decisively interfering in the life of someone else....
-- Mikhail Bakunin
Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does good not because he is forced to do so, but because he freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
From the naturalistic point of view, all men are equal. There are only two exceptions to this rule of naturalistic equality: geniuses and idiots.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
God, or rather the fiction of God, is thus the sanction and the intellectual and moral cause of all the slavery on earth, and the liberty of men will not be complete, unless it will have completely annihilated the inauspicious fiction of a heavenly master.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
I am neither a scientist, nor a philosopher nor even a professional writer. I have written very little in my life time, and have only ever done so in self-defence.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
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.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
If there is a State, then there is domination, and in turn, there is slavery.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
If you took the most ardent revolutionary, vested him in absolute power, within a year he would be worse than the Czar himself.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
Intellectual slavery, of whatever nature it may be, will always have as a natural result both political and social slavery.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
It clearly follows that to make men moral it is necessary to make their social environment moral. And that can be done in only one way; by assuring the triumph of justice, that is, the complete liberty of everyone in the most perfect equality for all. Inequality of conditions and rights, and the resulting lack of liberty for all, is the great collective iniquity begetting all individual iniquities.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
Liberty means that a man is recognized as free and treated as free by those who surround him.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
Man does not become man, nor does he achieve awareness or realization of his humanity, other than in society and in the collective movement of the whole society; he only shakes off the yoke of internal nature through collective or social labor... and without his material emancipation there can be no intellectual or moral emancipation for anyone... man in isolation can have no awareness of his liberty. Being free for man means being acknowledged, considered and treated as such by another man, and by all the men around him. Liberty is therefore a feature not of isolation but of interaction, not of exclusion but rather of connection... I myself am human and free only to the extent that I acknowledge the humanity and liberty of all my fellows... I am properly free when all the men and women about me are equally free. Far from being a limitation or a denial of my liberty, the liberty of another is its necessary condition and confirmation.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
No theory, no ready-made system, no book that has ever been written will save the world. I cleave to no system. I am a true seeker.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
The advent of liberty is incompatible with the existence of States.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
The free human society may arise at last, no longer organised ... from the top down... but rather starting from the free individual and the free association and autonomous commune, from the bottom up.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
The freedom of all is essential to my freedom.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
The passion for destruction is also a creative passion.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
The right to unite freely and to separate freely is the first and most important of all political rights.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
The State is the organized authority, domination, and power of the possessing classes over the masses the most flagrant, the most cynical, and the most complete negation of humanity. It shatters the universal solidarity of all men on the earth, and brings some of them into association only for the purpose of destroying, conquering, and enslaving all the rest. This flagrant negation of humanity which constitutes the very essence of the State is, from the standpoint of the State, its supreme duty and its greatest virtue Thus, to offend, to oppress, to despoil, to plunder, to assassinate or enslave one's fellowman is ordinarily regarded as a crime. In public life, on the other hand, from the standpoint of patriotism, when these things are done for the greater glory of the State, for the preservation or the extension of its power, it is all transformed into duty and virtue This explains why the entire history of ancient and modern states is merely a series of revolting crimes; why kings and ministers, past and present, of all times and all countries
-- Mikhail Bakunin
To revolt is a natural tendency of life. Even a worm turns against the foot that crushes it. In general, the vitality and relative dignity of an animal can be measured by the intensity of its instinct to revolt.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
Where the state begins, individual liberty ceases, and vice versa.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
Women, different from man but not inferior to him, intelligent, hardworking and free as he is, should be declared his equal in all political and social rights... religious and civil marriage should be replaced by free marriage, and that the upkeep, education and training of all children should be a matter for everyone, a charge upon society .... children belonging neither to society nor to their parents but rather to their future liberty.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
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
-- Mikhail Bakunin
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