Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Quotes

I know of no better name than Anarchism.

Central authority is bad. The bias should be for freedom. And without a central authority, there are lots of little authorities, and we learn which ones to trust.

I am for the people of the whole nation doing just as they please in all matters which concern the whole nation; for that of each part doing just as they choose in all matters which concern no other part; and for each individual doing just as he chooses in all matters which concern nobody else.

If the individual has a right to govern himself, all external government is tyranny. Hence the necessity of abolishing the State.

Anarchists are simply unterrified Jeffersonian Democrats.

The liberty of man consists solely in this, that he obeys the laws of nature because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been imposed upon him externally by any foreign will whatsoever, human or divine, collective or individual.

I don't believe in politics. I'm an anarchist, I guess you could say. I think people could be just fine looking after themselves.

I believe that I have been basically anarchistic, anti-religion and anti-industry and business. In other words, anti-bureaucracy. I would like to see people behave well without having to have priests stand by, politicians stand by, or people collecting bills.

I would much rather see responsibilities exercised by individuals than have them imposed by the government.

The love of liberty and the sense of human dignity are the basic elements of the Anarchist creed.

Certainly the worker has nothing to lose by a change from government and capitalism to a condition of no government, of anarchy. ~

For why should my freedom be judged by another’s conscience?

I am an Anarchist! Wherefore I will not rule, and also ruled I will not be!

There is a lack of emphasis and detail on self-government of business enterprises and community government. There is too much emphasis on the part that the Project Director and his staff play. Governmental officials should not impose their will on the residents, but the government should be formulated by the residents. It is absolutely essential that the personnel understand and sympathize with the policy of self-government.

It was a republic, but unlike any other republic that had ever existed. There were neither taxes nor police, nor an army, nor an administrative officer, nor a foreign policy, nor indeed any joint means of coercion; only the heads of the scattered settlements—settlements divided one from another by snow mountains and lava fields and belts of black volcanic sand and pebbles — met together once a year in a common assembly and agreed to obey and enforce a common law.

Under perfectly controlled conditions, man and every other organism behaves as it damn well pleases.

That government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

If the average man had had his way there would probably never have been any state. Even today he resents it, classes death with taxes, and yearns for that government which governs least. If he asks for many laws it is only because he is sure that his neighbor needs them; privately he is an unphilosophical anarchist, and thinks laws in his own case superfluous.

Anarchism … may be described as the doctrine that all the affairs of men should be managed by individuals or voluntary associations, and that the State should be abolished.

Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty.

All my political ideas boil down to a similar formula: political federation or decentralization.

The isolation of every human soul and the necessity of self-dependence must give each individual the right, to choose his own surroundings.

Anarchism means all sort of things to different people, but the traditional anarchists' movements assumed that there'd be a highly organized society, just one organized from below with direct participation and so on.

Republicans believe that problems are best solved at the level closest to the people and that the nation's strength comes from the diversity of its people, not from an all-powerful central government.

Arguably, the application of complete libertarianism leads one towards anarchy.