Quotes from Mikhail Bakunin

Such a faith would be fatal to my reason, to my liberty, and even to the success of my undertakings; it would immediately transform me into a stupid slave, an instrument of the will and interests of others.

A divine falsehood is more powerful than any human truth.

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

The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth.

Collective property and individual property, these two banners will be the standards under which, from now on, the great battles of the future will be fought.

But I recognize no infallible authority, even in special questions; consequently, whatever respect I may have for the honesty and the sincerity of such or such an individual, I have no absolute faith in any person.

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

It is the characteristic of privilege and of every privileged position to kill the mind and heart of men. The privileged man, whether practically or economically, is a man depraved in mind and heart.

Liberty means that a man is recognized as free and treated as free by those who surround him.

If God is, man is a slave; now, man can and must be free; then, God does not exist. I defy anyone whomsoever to avoid this circle; now, therefore, let all choose.

From each according to his faculties; to each according to his needs.

To my utter despair I have discovered, and discover every day anew, that there is in the masses no revolutionary idea or hope or passion.

The communism of Marx seeks a strong state centralization, and where this exists, there the parasitic Jewish nation - which speculates upon the labor of people - will always find the means for its existence.

The urge to destroy is also a creative urge.

Our first work must be the annihilation of everything as it now exists.

Where the state begins, individual liberty ceases, and vice versa.

If there is a State, then there is domination, and in turn, there is slavery.

The freedom of all is essential to my freedom.

The liberty of every individual is only the reflection of his own humanity, or his human right through the conscience of all free men, his brothers and his equals.

In general, the vitality and relative dignity of an animal can be measured by the intensity of its instinct to revolt.

The spontaneous action of the people themselves alone can create liberty.

It was impossible for the human mind to suspect that it was itself the sole creator of the divine world. It found the divine world before it; it found it as history, as tradition, as a sentiment, as a habit of thought; and it necessarily made it the object of its loftiest speculations. Thus was born metaphysics, and thus were developed and perfected the divine ideas, the basis of Spiritualism.

When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called "the People's Stick."

Oh, the air is sultry and pregnant with lightning. And therefore we call to our deluded brothers: Repent, repent, the Kingdom of the Lord is at hand!