Powerful states can maintain themselves only by crime, little states are virtuous only by weakness. Mikhail Bakunin More Quotes by Mikhail Bakunin More Quotes From Mikhail Bakunin Anyone who makes plans for after the revolution is a reactionary. Mikhail Bakunin reactionariesplansrevolution Destroy or be destroyed-there is no middle way! Let us then be the destroyers! Mikhail Bakunin middlenihilismway Bourgeois patriotism, as I view it, is only a very shabby, very narrow, very mercenary, and deeply antihuman passion, having for its object the preservation and maintenance of the power of the national state-that is, the mainstay of all the priveleges of the exploiters throughout the nation. Mikhail Bakunin passionviewswar The idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive negation of human liberty and necessarily ends in the enslavement of mankind both in theory and practice. Mikhail Bakunin practicejusticeideas 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. Mikhail Bakunin takenhumanitymen Man is only truly free only among equally free men. Mikhail Bakunin free-manmen Even the most wretched individual of our present society could not exist and develop without the cumulative social efforts of countless generations. Mikhail Bakunin individualgenerationseffort No theory, no ready-made system, no book that has ever been written will save the world. I cleave to no system. I am a true seeker. Mikhail Bakunin humanitybookworld The right to unite freely and to separate freely is the first and most important of all political rights. Mikhail Bakunin politicalimportantrights Do you want to make it impossible for anyone to oppress his fellow-man? Then make sure that no one shall possess power. Mikhail Bakunin fellow-manwantmen A person is strong only when he stands upon his own truth, when he speaks and acts with his deepest convictions. Then, whatever the situation he may be in, he always knows what he must say and do. He may fall, but he cannot bring shame upon himself or his cause. If we seek the liberation of the people by means of a lie, we will surely grow confused, go astray, and loose sight of our objective, and if we have any influence at all on the people we will lead them astray as well - in other words, we will be acting in the spirit of reaction and to its benefit. Mikhail Bakunin confusedstronglying Real humanity presents a mixture of all that is most sublime and beautiful with all that is vilest and most monstrous in the world. Mikhail Bakunin realhumanitybeautiful But here steps in Satan, the eternal rebel, the first freethinker and the emancipator of worlds. He makes man ashamed of his bestial ignorance and obedience; he emancipates him, stamps upon his brow the seal of liberty and humanity, in urging him to disobey and eat of the fruit of knowledge. Mikhail Bakunin ignoranceatheistmen Nationality is not a universal human principle but an historical, local fact...Every nation, even a small one, has its own character, its own particular way of life and manner of speaking, feeling, thinking, and behaving. These distinctive features are the essence of nationality, the product of a nation's entire history and conditions of existence. Every nation, like every individual, is of necessity what it is, and has an unquestionable right to be itself. So-called national rights consist precisely of this. Mikhail Bakunin rightscharacterthinking I am not myself free or human until or unless I recognize the freedom and humanity of all my fellowmen... I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation. Mikhail Bakunin libertyhumanitymen There are but three ways for the populace to escape its wretched lot. The first two are by the routes of the wine-shop or the church; the third is by that of the social revolution. Mikhail Bakunin winechurchtwo God, or rather the fiction of God, is thus the sanction and the intellectual and moral cause of all the slavery on earth, and the liberty of men will not be complete, unless it will have completely annihilated the inauspicious fiction of a heavenly master. Mikhail Bakunin libertyintellectualmen 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. Mikhail Bakunin meritappreciatehands 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. Mikhail Bakunin strongmeanpeople As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth. Mikhail Bakunin godheavenlong
