Mikhail Bakunin Quotes

Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.

Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people.

… so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.

Witness the tragic condition of Russia. The methods of State centralization have paralyzed individual initiative and effort; the tyranny of the dictatorship has cowed the people into slavish submission and all but extinguished the fires of liberty; organized terrorism has depraved and brutalized the masses and stifled every idealistic aspiration; institutionalized murder has cheapened human life, and all sense of the dignity of man and the value of life has been eliminated; coercion at every step has made effort bitter, labor a punishment, has turned the whole of existence into a scheme of mutual deceit, and has revived the lowest and most brutal instincts of man.

The best argument for anarchism is the twentieth century.

The socialized state is to justice, order, and freedom what the Marquis de Sade is to love.

The doctrine of blind obedience and unqualified submission to any human power, whether civil or ecclesiastical, is the doctrine of despotism, and ought to have no place among Republicans and Christians.

Tyranny is always better organized than freedom.

A collective tyrant, spread over the length and breadth of the land, is no more acceptable than a single tyrant ensconced on his throne.

To strip a man of all loyalties but those to the state, makes him not only a worm but a monster, without a shred of humanity.

In most of history, societies have not been free. It's a very rare society that is free. The default condition of human societies is tyranny.

The more complete the despotism, the more smoothly all things move on the surface.

The world will not accept dictatorship or domination.

Every one of the world's dictatorships can and does claim to be acting in the name of the people.

Every tyrant who has lived has believed in freedom for himself.

I have no desire to go in for tyranny or to play the part of King Charles. I hate tyranny in any field of human activity.

Hero-worship is strongest where there is least regard for human freedom.

The death of dictator Kim Jong-Il has cast all eyes on North Korea, a country without literature or freedom or truth.

Communism may be over as an economic system, but as a model of state domination, it is very much alive in the People's Republic of China and in Putin's police state.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

Socialism means slavery.

A state is not a state if it belongs to one man.

Under a dictatorship, a nation ceases to exist. All that remains is a fiefdom, a planet of slaves regimented by aliens from outer space.

It is remarkable how easily children and grown-ups adapt to living in a dictatorship organised by lunatics.

It is from weakness that people reach for dictators and concentrated government power. Only the strong can be free. And only the productive can be strong.