Rudolph Rocker Quotes

Anarchism is democracy taken seriously.

One of the problems with dealing with anarchism is that there are many people whose ideas are anarchist, but who do not necessarily call themselves anarchists.

That is what I have always understood to be the essence of anarchism: the conviction that the burden of proof has to be placed on authority, and that it should be dismantled if that burden cannot be met.

Whatever its future success as a historical movement, anarchism will remain a fundamental part of human experience, for the drive for freedom is one of our deepest needs and the vision of a free society is one of our oldest dreams. Neither can ever be fully repressed; both will outlive all rulers and their States.

The term anarchism has become associated with two phenomena with which real anarchist don't want to associate themselves with. One is violence, and the other is disorder or chaos. The popular conception of anarchism is on the one hand bomb-throwing and terrorism, and on the other hand no rules, no regulations, no discipline, everybody does what they want, confusion, etc. That is why there is a reluctance to use the term anarchism.

Anarchism is no patent solution for all human problems, no Utopia of a perfect social order, as it has often been called, since on principle it rejects all absolute schemes and concepts. It does not believe in any absolute truth, or in definite final goals for human development, but in an unlimited perfectibility of social arrangements and human conditions which are always straining after higher forms of expression, and to which for this reason one can assign no definite terminus nor set any fixed goal.

Cleansed of its leftist residues, anarchy - anarchism minus Marxism - will be free to get better at being what it is.

We have all in some degree become anarchistic.

Anarchism as a political philosophy seeks to dissolve all forms of authority and power, and if possible, wishes their complete abolition.

Anarchism misunderstands the real nature of man. It would be practicable only in a world of angels and saints

I don't think anarchism consists of sitting down and saying let's form a collective. I don't think it consists of saying we're all anarchists: you're an anarcho-syndicalist; you're an anarcho-communist; you're an anarcho-individualist.

Anarchism is a game at which the police can beat you.

Anarchism is "stateless socialism."

ANARCHISM:The philosophy of a new social order based on liberty unrestricted by man-made law; the theory that all forms of government rest on violence, and are therefore wrong and harmful, as well as unnecessary.

Don't get married to the idea of something having to be one way.

In the sense that anarchy equals freedom, yes. Anarchy means freedom, but it also means chaos.

Not whether we accomplish anarchism today, tomorrow, or within ten centuries, but that we walk towards anarchism today, tomorrow, and always.

It is often said that Anarchists live in a world of dreams to come, and do not see the things which happen today. We do see them only too well, and in their true colors, and that is what makes us carry the hatchet into the forest of prejudice that besets us.

I'm by no means convinced that capitalism and the development of technology has made anarchism easier.

I think we have to talk about educating the people for critical consciousness about what anarchy is.

I have been an Anarchist all my life.

The best argument for anarchism is the twentieth century.

The finest souls are those that have the most variety and suppleness.

I'm just an entertainer, man. I don't like to pigeonhole myself to anything. I love to do it all.

Libertarian socialism is properly to be regarded as the inheritor of the liberal ideals of the Enlightenment.