quotations about anarchy & anarchism
Anarchism is democracy taken seriously.
EDWARD ABBEY
One Life at a Time, Please
When I say "Anarchism" you hear "Chaos, Violence, Mayhem".
When I say "Anarchism" I mean "Cooperation, Voluntary Association, Mutual Aid".
SIMON SPRINGER
Twitter post, February 24, 2016
An anarchist is someone who doesn't need a cop to make him behave.
AMMON HENNACY
The Book of Ammon
Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
Anarchism is "stateless socialism."
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
"Stateless Socialism: Anarchism", The Political Philosophy of Bakunin
Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
Somebody once declared that the only two political theories that are completely consistent are anarchy and totalitarianism. Anarchy fully embraces the concept of self, totalitarianism fully rejects that concept.
DARRELL ANDERSON
"What Is Liberty?"
While the popular understanding of anarchism is of a violent, anti-State movement, anarchism is a much more subtle and nuanced tradition then a simple opposition to government power. Anarchists oppose the idea that power and domination are necessary for society, and instead advocate more co-operative, anti-hierarchical forms of social, political and economic organization.
L. SUSAN BROWN
The Politics of Individualism: Liberalism, Liberal Feminism and Anarchism
Anarchism is the doctrine that government should be abolished.
HENRY BOOL
Henry Bool's Apology for His Jeffersonian Anarchism
Jesus Christ was the supreme example of authentic anarchy -- the creative non-violent anarchist par excellence -- working not from the top down, but from the bottom up with the poor, and the poorest of the poor, to empower people and enable them to realize their potential, as men and women made in the images of God.
DAVE ANDREWS
Christi-Anarchy: Discovering a Radical Spirituality of Compassion
You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Dispossessed
As to the American tradition of non-meddling, Anarchism asks that it be carried down to the individual himself.
VOLTAIRINE DE CLEYRE
"Anarchism & American Traditions", Mother Earth, Dec. 1908
There is no greater evil than anarchy.
SOPHOCLES
Antigone
#AnarchoCapitalism is just feudalism in disguise.
PANORAMICS!
Twitter post, March 7, 2016
We started off trying to set up a small anarchist community, but people wouldn't obey the rules.
ALAN BENNETT
Getting On
We must shed the old stereotype of anarchists as bearded bomb throwers furtively stalking about city streets at night.
STEPHEN JAY GOULD
"Kropotkin Was No Crackpot", Natural History, Jun. 1997
The measure of the state's success is that the word anarchy frightens people, while the word state does not.
JOSEPH SOBRAN
attributed, The Definitive Guide to Political Ideologies
Are not laws dangerous which inhibit the passions? Compare the centuries of anarchy with those of the strongest legalism in any country you like and you will see that it is only when the laws are silent that the greatest actions appear.
MARQUIS DE SADE
L'Histoire de Juliette
Claiming to be an anarchist while simultaneously advocating that people vote in the very system that you condemn is like claiming to be a vegan right as you bite into a bloody steak.
JAKE SIMPKINS
FaceBook post, February 2016
The more enlightened man will become, the less he will employ compulsion and coercion. The really civilized man will divest himself of all fear and authority. He will rise from the dust and stand erect: he will bow to no tsar either in heaven or on earth. He will become fully human when he will scorn to rule and refuse to be ruled. He will be truly free only when there shall be no more masters.... Anarchy therefore does not mean disorder and chaos, as you thought before. On the contrary, it is the very reverse of it; it means no government, which is freedom and liberty. Disorder is the child of authority and compulsion. Liberty is the mother of order.
ALEXANDER BERKMAN
"Is Anarchism Violence?", ABC of Anarchism