Best 529 quotes in «anarchy quotes» category

& may you shine on in the sky with diamonds & dreams...do it for the suit behind the platform, who only wished he were free. have strength in freedom.

Anarchists present a new method; the free initiative of all and free agreement; then, after the revolutionary abolition of private property, every one will have equal power to dispose of social wealth.

Anarchy is law and freedom without force. Despotism is law and force without freedom. Barbarism force without freedom and law. Republicanism is force with freedom and law.

Anarchy is like custard cooking over a flame; it has to be constantly stirred or it sticks and gets heavy, like government.

Anarşistler demokratik bir devlet taraftarı değildirler, ancak demokratik bir toplum, bir “yaşam tarzı” olarak demokrasinin tarafında olabilirler. Anarşizm devletin olmadığı bir demokrasidir.

An anarchist government somehow creates an impression in the hearts of citizens that no one cares.

Anarchism is not only a stateless society but also a harmonized society that exposes man to the stimuli provided by both agrarian and urban life, to physical activity and mental activity, to unrepressed sensuality and self-directed spirituality, to communal solidarity and individual development, to regional uniqueness and worldwide brotherhood, to spontaneity and self-discipline, to the elimination of toil and the promotion of craftsmanship.

Anarcho-capitalism is not by definition libertarian. It is rather a prediction, not a definition.

Anarchy can only ever be a temporary state. As with other creatures on this planet, it is human nature to crave the security of creating hierarchical structures. Our major religions are based on the same concept. Even the Antichrist has an antithetical hierarchy in Hell.

Anarchists are mouthpieces of a declining stratum of society; when they work themselves into a state of righteous indignation demanding 'rights', 'justice', 'equal rights', they are just acting under the pressure of their own lack of culture, which has no way of grasping why they really suffer, or what they lack in life.

Anarchists, I suppose, have no families--not, at any rate, as we understand that social relation. Organization into families may answer to a need of human nature, but in the last instance it is based on law, and therefore must be something odious and impossible to an anarchist.

Anarchy has the flexibility to overcome many of the traditional problems of activism by focusing on revolution not as another cause but as a philosophy of living. This philosophy is as concrete as a brick being thrown through a window or flowers growing in the garden. By making our daily lives revolutionary, we destroy the artificial separation between activism and everyday life. Why settle for comrades and fellow activists when we can have friends and lovers?

Anarchy raised its seductive head. He could do anything; there was nothing that was not allowed.

An Atheist, is nothing but a bankrupt Anarchist.

Anarchists did not try to carry out genocide against the Armenians in Turkey; they did not deliberately starve millions of Ukrainians; they did not create a system of death camps to kill Jews, gypsies, and Slavs in Europe; they did not fire-bomb scores of large German and Japanese cities and drop nuclear bombs on two of them; they did not carry out a ‘Great Leap Forward’ that killed scores of millions of Chinese; they did not attempt to kill everybody with any appreciable education in Cambodia; they did not launch one aggressive war after another; they did not implement trade sanctions that killed perhaps 500,000 Iraqi children. In debates between anarchists and statists, the burden of proof clearly should rest on those who place their trust in the state. Anarchy’s mayhem is wholly conjectural; the state’s mayhem is undeniably, factually horrendous.

Anarchy and Liberty are synonymous. Anything less is merely gradient levels of slavery.

Anarchy is merely the illusion of liberty.

And each ripple builds and builds into the tidal wave of anarchy to which we are now doomed.

And the extraordinary thing is that according to these texts all powers, all the power and glory of the kingdoms, all that has to do with politics and political authority, belongs to the devil. It has all been given to him and he gives it to whom he wills. Those who hold political power receive it from him and depend upon him. (It is astonishing that in the innumerable theological discussions of the legitimacy of political power, no one has ever adduced these texts! [Matthew 4:8-9; Luke 4:6-7]) This fact is no less important than the fact that Jesus rejects the devil's offer. Jesus does not say to the devil: It is not true. You do not have power over kingdoms and states. He does not dispute this claim. He refuses the offer of power because the devil demands that he should fall down before him. This is the sole point when he says: 'You shall worship the Lord your God and you shall serve him, only him' (Matthew 4:10). We may thus say that among Jesus' immediate followers and in the first Christian generation political authorities - what we call the state - belonged to the devil and those who held power received it from him.

An Odonian undertook monogamy just as he might undertake a joint enterprise in production, a ballet or a soap-works. Partnership was a voluntarily constituted federation like any other. So long as it worked, it worked, and if it didn't work it stopped being. It was not an institution but a function. It had no sanction but that of private conscience.

A perfect society needs no rulers," they said. "Knowledge and authority ought to be held in common. In order to imagine a new existence, we must free ourselves from the structures of both our failed government and the unjustifiable hegemony of the wasp nests. Hear what you can hear and learn what you can learn while we remain among them. But be ready.

A person who says “every person has a right to a decent education” may not actually mean “people should be robbed to support bad schools” or “all children should be forced into a prison-like building for 12 years.

A promise is a direction taken, a self-limitation of choice. As Odo pointed out, if no direction is taken, if one goes nowhere, no change will occur. One's freedom to choose and to change will be unused, exactly as if one were in jail, a jail of one's own building, a maze in which no one way is better than any other.

A preoccupation with power - black power, student power, flower power, poor power, 'the power structure' - is the striking aspect of the American political scene at the moment. Oddly enough, obsession with power goes hand in hand with a fear of power. Some of the New Left groups that talk the toughest about power are extremely reluctant to see power operate in any institutional form; within their own organizations, they shun 'hierarchies' and formally structured relations of authority. What the preoccupation with power reflects, essentially, is a deep=seated, pervasive feeling of powerlessness.

A revolution is a military thing; it has all the military virtues; one of which is that it comes to an end. Two parties fight with deadly weapons, but under certain rules of arbitrary honor; the party that wins becomes the government and proceeds to govern. The aim of civil war, like the aim of all war, is peace… They do not create revolution; what they do create is anarchy; and the difference between these is not a question of violence, but a question of fruitfulness and finality. Revolution of its nature produces government; anarchy only produces more anarchy. Men may have what opinions they please about the beheading of King Charles or King Louis, but they cannot deny that Bradshaw and Cromwell ruled, that Carnot and Napoleon governed. Someone conquered; something occurred. You can only knock off the King’s head once. But you can knock off the King’s hat any number of times. Destruction is finite, obstruction is infinite: so long as rebellion takes the form of mere disorder (instead of an attempt to enforce a new order) there is no logical end to it; it can feed on itself and renew itself forever.

Are you for peace? The great test of your devotion to peace is not how many words you utter on its behalf. It’s not even how you propose to deal with people of other countries, though that certainly tells us something. To fully measure your “peacefulness” requires that we examine how you propose to treat people in your own backyard. Do you demand more of what doesn’t belong to you? Do you endorse the use of force to punish people for victimless “crimes”? Do you support politicians who promise to seize the earnings of others to pay for your bailout, your subsidy, your student loan, your child’s education or whatever pet cause or project you think is more important than what your fellow citizens might personally prefer to spend their own money on? Do you believe theft is OK if it’s for a good cause or endorsed by a majority? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then have the courage to admit that peace is not your priority. How can I trust your foreign policy if your domestic policy requires so much to be done at gunpoint?

As a matter of fact, states everywhere are highly intent on outlawing or at least controlling even the mere possession of arms by private citizens—and most states have indeed succeeded in this task—as an armed man is clearly more of a threat to any aggressor than an unarmed man. It bears much less risk for the state to keep things peaceful while its own aggression continues, if rifles with which the taxman could be shot are out of the reach of everyone except the taxman himself!

As I explain in 'What It Means to be an Anarcho-Capitalist', to be an anarchist simply means you oppose aggression, and you realize the state necessarily commits aggression. If you are not an anarchist, it means you either condone aggression, or think the state does not necessarily commit aggression. As you say you are not an anarchist, can you please tell us which one describes you? Are you in favor of aggression (like socialists and criminals are)? Or, do you think the state does not commit aggression (like children brainwashed by government schools think)?

As we embark upon the twenty-first century, it seems ironically clear that tomorrow’s anarchy might still be due, in no small part, to yesterday’s colonial attempts at order. I have no wish to give those politicians in postcolonial countries whose leadership has been found wanting in the present, any reason to find excuses for their failures in the past. But in looking to understand the forces that have made us and nearly unmade us, and in hoping to recognize possible future sources of conflict in the new millennium, we have to realize that sometimes the best crystal ball is a rear-view mirror.

A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society.

[...] A society that drives its members to desperate solutions is a non-viable society, a society to be replaced.

[...] a time when anarchists were truly fearsome —less because they were willing to put a brick through a Starbucks window than because they had figured out how to organize themselves in a functional, egalitarian, and sufficiently productive society.

Basically we all need to be anarchists already, there I said it.

At least I had frost on my nose, boots on my feet, and protest in my mouth.

At the fringe edge of advancement it's a war of anarchy and chaos.

A valid contract requires voluntary offer, acceptance, and consideration.

At first, one only recognizes particular instances to be worth of critique; critique appears synonymous with rejection, implying deficiency in the object. Over time, one discovers that everything warrants critique. This can produce cynicism: nothing is above reproach, nothing is pure, therefore nothing has value. But followed through to its logical conclusion, this insight inspires a profound optimism: if everything can be critiqued, then no matter how bleak things are, there is always a way to improve them. Those who comprehend this can pass beyond the binary of approval and disapproval to identify the conflicting currents within any subject of inquiry. There are sides to take inside every position, as well as between them.

1. Society needs laws. While anarchy can often turn a humdrum weekend into something unforgettable, eventually the mob must be kept from stealing the conch and killing Piggy. And while it would be nice if that "something" was simple human decency, anybody who has witnessed the "50% Off Wedding Dress Sale" at Filene's Basement knows we need a backup plan—preferably in writing. On the other hand, too many laws can result in outright tyranny, particularly if one of those laws is "Kneel before Zod." Somewhere between these two extremes lies the legislative sweet-spot that produces just the right amount of laws for a well-adjusted society—more than zero, less than fascism.

Basically, if you're not a utopianist, you're a schmuck.

Beautiful, seamless upgrade from Twitter today, making functionality smoother and cooler. We didn't have to lobby, didn't have to beg, didn't have to elect a new leader, didn't have to push or protest. Progress is built in to the structure of the mechanism itself: this company exists to please you and me. This is a far better system than any political system on earth.

But democrats are seldom welcome on planets run by totalitarian governments, and scarcely more welcome on planets where anarchy prevails--this is due to the very nature of democracy, the only practical compromise between totalitarianism and anarchy.

Because I care about human beings, I want them to be free to do what is right for them. Isn't that more important than mere peace on earth? Isn't freedom, even dangerous freedom, preferable to the safest slavery, to peace bought with ignorance, cowardice, and submission?

Both Bratva and thieves in law would like to call themselves nihilists and anarchists because they don’t support the established government, but they govern nonetheless, and you can’t be an anarchist unless you follow its rule. Crime and anarchy are no more synonymous than nihilism and existentialism, or fatalism and determinism; so many isms there was bound to be a schism.

But who would build the roads if there were no government? You mean to tell me that 300 million people in this country and 7 billion people on the planet would just sit around in their houses and think “Gee, I’d like to go visit Fred, but I can't because there isn’t a flat thing outside for me to drive on, and I don’t know how to build it and the other 300 million or 7 billion people can’t possibly do it because there aren’t any politicians and tax collectors. If they were here then we could do it. If they were here to boss us around and steal our money and really inefficiently build the flat places, then we would be set. Then I would be comfortable and confident that I could get places. But I can’t go to Fred’s house or the market because we can’t possibly build a flat space from A to B. We can make these really small devices that enable us to contact people from all over the word that fits in our pockets; we can make machines that we drive around in, but no, we can’t possibly build a flat space.

But now I understand something more fully that I once only understood abstractly. I see how utterly ridiculous it is to think that the state can be the right means to help those who are poor or living at the margins of society. The state is their enemy, as it is for everyone else.

Can social progress be made without government? It's like saying 'can happiness be achieved without the initiation of violence? Can romance be achieved without rape? Can profitability be achieved without theft? Can economic growth be achieved without the mass indebted enslavement and counterfeiting of the federal reserve?'.

By portraying war as an opportunity for virtuous acts, the politicians romanticize evil.

Can we imagine a togetherness that isn't founded on gross generalizations, conceptualizing ourselves as unique individuals who still stand to gain from looking out for one another? Can we identify with each other rather than with categories or masters?

Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group—whether to a race, class or state does not matter. Collectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for the sake of what is called “the common good.

Collectivism is the "philosophy" of every cockroach and sewer rat: "If I want it, I must need it, and if I need it, I have a right to it, and if I have a right to it, it doesn't matter what I have to do to get it." The fact that such an inherently animalistic, short-sighted, anti-human viewpoint is now painted by some as compassionate and "progressive" does not make it any more sane, or any less dangerous.