Quotes by Mikhail Bakunin

"The privileged man, whether he be privileged politically or economically, is a man depraved in intellect and heart."

"Does it follow that I reject all authority? Perish the thought. In the matter of boots, I defer to the authority of the boot-maker."

"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."

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

"People go to church for the same reasons they go to a tavern: to stupefy themselves, to forget their misery, to imagine themselves, for a few minutes anyway, free and happy."

"Therefore, if God existed, only in one way could he serve human liberty - by ceasing to exist."

"Everything will pass, and the world will perish but the Ninth Symphony will remain."

"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."

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

"Powerful states can maintain themselves only by crime, little states are virtuous only by weakness."

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

"Look at Christ, my dear friend: His life was divine through and through, full of self-denial, and He did everything for mankind, finding His satisfaction and His delight in the dissolution of His material being."

"Anyone who makes plans for after the revolution is a reactionary."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"Thence results, for science as well as for industry, the necessity of the division and association of labor. I receive and I give - such is human life. Each directs and is directed in his turn."

"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."

"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."