What's your favorite Anarchist quote?

The Anarchists are right in everything; in the negation of the existing order, and in the assertion that, without Authority, there could not be worse violence than that of Authority under existing conditions. They are mistaken only in thinking that Anarchy can be instituted by a revolution. But it will be instituted only by there being more and more people who do not require the protection of governmental power ... There can be only one permanent revolution - a moral one: the regeneration of the inner man.

-Leo Tolstoy, Christian Anarchist

 

Anarchy is the only slight glimmer of hope - Mick Jagger

 

"I don't dream about Anarchy, I dream about Utopia"

A friend of mine came up with that, or at least he says he did. Still, I think it's awesome though it did take me a minute to actually get it but yeah...

 

Here's yet another one by Noam Chomsky. You might recognise it from the end of the "Manufacturing Consent" movie if you've seen that.

"Modern industrial civilization has developed within a certain system of convenient myths. The driving force of modern industrial civilization has been individual material gain, which has been accepted as legitimate, even praise worthy, on the grounds that private vices yield public benefits in the classic formulation. Now it's long been understood that a society that is based on this principle will destroy itself in time. It can only persist with whatever suffering and injustice that entails as long as it's possible to pretend that the destructive forces humans create are limited, that the world is an infinite resource, and that the world is an infinite garbage can.
At this stage of history, either one of two things is possible:
Either the general population will take control of its own destiny and will concern itself with community interests guided by values of solidarity and sympathy and concern for others, or alternatively, there will be no destiny to speak of.
As long as a specialized class is in a position of authority, it is going to set policy in the special interest that it serves. But the conditions of survival, let alone justice, require rational social planning in the interest of the community as a whol, and by now that means the global community.
The question is whether privilidged elites should dominate mass communication and should use this power as they tell us they must as a way to impose necessary illusions to manipulate and deceive the stupid majority and keep them out of the public arena.
The question in brief is wether democracy and freedom are values to be preserved or threats to be avoided.
In this possible terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than values to be treasured, they may very well be essential to survival."

 

Until people stop using the word "anarchy" or "anarchist" in the same propogandist way it is used on TV news - as a word that means "chaos" you will always have a confusion between the ideas of utopia, chaos, and society -
Anarchy aims to produce a society - not a utopia - and chaos is what pro-capitalist governments force us to live in. while utopia is simply a dream that one day we can be rid of the need for politics - Anarchism is neither a utopian idea or chaos - Anarchy is society and order

 

'' I am the one who better knows what's best for myself.''

 

"You can't make the revolution, you can't buy the revolution, you can only be the revolution. It's in you or it's nowhere".

Ursula K. Leguin "The Dispossessed"

 

I like this one from Lucy Parsons:
"stroll you down the avenues of the rich and look through the magnificent plate-glass windows into their voluptuous homes, and here you will discover the very identical robbers who have despoiled you and yours. Then let your tragedy be enacted here. Awaken them from their wanton sports at your expense. Then send forth your petition and let them read it by the red glare of destruction."

 

"People aren't expendable - government is!"
Aus-Rotten

 

Two that come to mind:


"The State is the curse of the individual...The State must go! That will be a revolution which will find me on its side. Undermine the idea of the State, set up in its place spontaneous action, and the idea that spiritual relationship is the only thing that makes for unity, and you will start the elements of a liberty which will be something worth possessing." - Henrik Ibsen

[size=+1]"If the Nuremberg laws were applied today, then every Post-War American president would have to be hanged." - Noam Chomsky[/size][size=+1]

[/size]

 

"If labor becomes free, the State is lost."
-Max Stirner

 

Only after the last tree has been cut down,
only after the last river has been poisoned,
only after the last fish has been caught,
only then will you realize that money cannot be eaten. --The Cree People

 

Nice thread GR.... gotta say though, I don't think Chomsky is an anarchist. Particularly revealing is the "burden of proof" qualifier.
"unless a justification can be given, they are illegitimate"
As an anarchist, I can't stand for that shit. As for the bit about his stopping his grandchildren darting out in the street, I don't necessarily think that's authoritarian, at least not in the sense we use in discussing anarchism. I think we can share ideas and knowledge, and if a person comes to see some truth in something I say I don't think that makes me any kind of authority.

Don't get me wrong, I've learned alot from his books, but he's no anarchist... In fact I heard a quote from him recently I think you'd find interesting, something to the effect of "anarcho-primitivism is the call for the genocide of half the planet."
Huh? I don't know about you, but I thought proimitivism is about ending the genocide of the whole fucking planet. Really, Chomsky has got to get with it, because he doesn't seem to have any idea whats going on with anarchism today.

 

I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do with it once i got it. I just... do...

 

What this country needs is more unemployed politicians. > >
Angela Davis

 

When in Rome, do as the vandals do.
-Anon

 

I think he meant that without an industrial technological society we would be unable to support our current human populations. He wasn't rejecting enviromentalism, sustainability, or responsibile use of resources.

I take a similar view, comparable to that of Aldous Huxley's in his novel Island, of measured and restrained industry and technology, designed to compliment life, rather than define it.

For me, a return to a primitive lifestyle is undesirable, not that we don't have much to learn from primitive societies, but I think likewise there is much that primitive societies can take from "modern" ones. My Anarchy is a synthesis of the two

 

"War is when the government tells you who the enemy is; Revolution is when you decide that for yourself"

 

Addmittedly, this one is from an AnCap, but whilst most folks here probably disagree with his politics, I think the quote is a good one and characteristically anarchist:

"If "we are the government," then anything a government does to
an individual is not only just and untyrannical but also "voluntary" on the part of the
individual concerned...
...Under this reasoning, any Jews murdered by the Nazi
government were not murdered; instead, they must have "committed suicide,"

--The Anatomy of the State, Murray N. Rothbard"

 

Yeah but the fact that the the planet cannot sustain current populations- and that collapse would result is a die off is not an argument against primitivism. It just doesn't make sense. Industrial civilization is causing immeasurable death and suffering and is in effect a ticking time bomb. This population cannot be propped up forever. To attribute these consequences to primitivism, or worse, to accuse us of calling for genocide is insane.

That sounds very nice, but the fact is that technology does define our lives. We shouldn't view tech as just a bunch of tools, to be used one way or another. All these pieces of tech are the product of a complex system of production and distribution, and they are inseparable from that system. And as I said this system results in untold suffering. Despite all the rhetoric about making industry more humane and environmentally friendly, blind technological progress has always been pushed at the expense of all else. How can such a system be said to be neutral?
And shit, if I'm not threatened with starvation, I'll be damned if I'm going back to work.

Be careful. A great many atrocities were committed in the name of "modernizing" the savages. They may not have all been completely egalitarian, but modern archaeology is revealing that they were typically much more so than we are. And in any case they seemed to do just fine without us.