Anarchism is really a synonym for socialism. The anarchist is primarily a socialist whose aim is to abolish the exploitation of man by man. Anarchism is only one of the streams of socialist thought, that stream whose main components are concern for liberty and haste to abolish the State. Daniel Guérin, Anarchism: From Theory to Practice, 1969
A rational anarchist believes that concepts such as state and society and government have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame ... as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else. But being rational, he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluations, so he tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world ... aware that his effort will be less than perfect yet undismayed by self-knowledge of self-failure. Robert A Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, 1966
Anarchy, when it works to destroy authority in all its aspects, when it demands the abrogation of laws and the abolition of the mechanism that serves to impose them, when it refuses all hierarchical organization and preaches free agreement – at the same time strives to maintain and enlarge the precious kernel of social customs without which no human or animal society can exist. Only, instead of demanding that those social customs should be maintained through the authority of a few, it demands it from the continued action of all. Peter Kropotkin, Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal, 1898
As an anarchist, I cannot reconcile myself to any government. Peter Kropotkin, cited From Prince to Rebel 1990 George Woodcock and Ivan Avakumovic p428
Anarchism, as the word signifies, is a philosophy that argues for a society without government. Its ethical values are of the highest. It prefers cooperation to competition, freedom to power, spontaneity to coercion. Leslie Lipson, The Great Issues of Politics
May 6th 1901 Cleveland Ohio: Emma Goldman, regarded as the high priestess of Anarchism, addresses the Franklin Liberal Club. Infamous Assassinations: The Assassination of President McKinley
‘The insurrectional fact, destined to affirm socialist principles by deed, is the most efficacious means of propaganda … It is therefore necessary to destroy with violence, since one cannot do otherwise, the violence which denies these means to the workers.’ Erico Malatesta 1876, cited Plutocracy II: Solidarity Forever, 2016
We anarchists do not want to emancipate the people; we want the people to emancipate themselves. Errico Malatesta, l’Agitazione 18 June 1897
Looking at the world as a whole, the drift for many decades has been not towards anarchy but towards the re-imposition of slavery. George Orwell, You and the Atom Bomb, Tribune 19 October 1945
A lot of anarchists had a major role in influencing my political thinking, especially the individualist anarchists. Benjamin Tucker and Lysander Spooner especially. But I’ve also been influenced by Leo Tolstoy’s anarcho-pacifism. And I find a lot of Kropotkin compatible even though he was a communist anarchist. Nothing wrong with communist anarchism as long as it remains voluntary. Any one that wants to go make a commune, go ahead, do it. I got nothing against it. As long as there’s room to the individualist to do his or her own thing. Robert Anton Wilson
Some anarchists have claimed not merely that we would be better off without a state, but that any state necessarily violates people’s moral rights and hence is intrinsically immoral. Our starting point then, though nonpolitical, is by intention far from nonmoral. Moral philosophy sets the background for, and boundaries of, political philosophy. What persons may and may not do to one another limits what they may do through the apparatus of a state, or do to establish such an apparatus. Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, 1974
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 protection from governmental power, and by there being more and more people who will be ashamed of applying this power. Leo Tolstoy, On Anarchy
In a word, we reject all legislation, all authority, and all privileged, licensed, official, and legal influence, even though arising from universal suffrage, convinced that it can turn only to the advantage of a dominant minority of exploiters against the interests of the immense majority in subjection to them. Mikhail Bakunin, God and the State
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
Adjudication by an armed authority appears to be the most effective violence-reduction technique ever invented. Though we debate whether tweaks in criminal policy, such as executing murderers versus locking them up for life, can reduce violence by a few percentage points, there can be no debate on the massive effects of having a criminal justice system as opposed to living in anarchy. The shockingly high homicide rates of pre-state societies, with 10 to 60 per cent of the men dying at the hands of other men, provide one kind of evidence. Another is the emergence of a violent culture of honor in just about any corner of the world that is beyond the reach of law … The generalization that anarchy in the sense of a lack of government leads to anarchy in the sense of violent chaos may seem banal, but it is often over-looked in today's still-romantic climate. Steven Pinker
Meanwhile, we will hate Anarchy as Death, which it is; and the things worse than Anarchy shall be hated more! Surely Peace alone is fruitful. Anarchy is destruction: a burning up, say, of Shams and Insupportabilities; but which leaves Vacancy behind. Know this also, that out of a world of Unwise nothing but an Unwisdom can be made. Arrange it, Constitution-build it, sift it through Ballot-Boxes as thou wilt, it is and remains an Unwisdom – the new prey of new quacks and unclean things, the latter end of it slightly better than the beginning. Who can bring a wise thing out of men unwise? Not one. And so Vacancy and general Abolition having come for this France, what can Anarchy do more? Let there be Order, were it under the Soldier’s Sword; let there be Peace, that the bounty of the Heavens be not spilt; that what of Wisdom they do send us bring fruit in its season! – It remains to be seen how the quellers of Sansculottism were themselves quelled, and sacred right of Insurrection was blown away by gunpowder: wherewith this singular eventful History called French Revolution end. Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution
Lo! thy dread empire, Chaos! is restored;
Light dies before thy uncreating word:
Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtains fall;
And universal darkness buries all. Alexander Pope, The Dunciad, 1742
The last ground-breaking novel of the era. It was the work of a revolutionary philosopher – William Godwin. In 1793 Godwin’s essay An Inquiry Concerning Political Justice introduced the idea of anarchism. The following year he published a novel Caleb Williams. Henry Hitchings, Birth of the British Novel, BBC 2011
Are not laws dangerous which inhibit the passions? Compare the centuries of anarchy with those of the strongest legalism in any country you like and you will see that it is only when the laws are silent that the greatest actions appear. Marquis de Sade
It is because you want to be the only anarchist in chambers. Rumpole of the Bailey s2e2: Rumpole and the Case of Identity, Guthrie, ITV 1979
The worst things in this world next to anarchy is government. Henry Ward Beecher
All artists are anarchists to some degree. The Walk 2015 starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt & Charlotte Le Bo & Ben Kingsley & Clement Sibony & James Badge Dale & Cesar Domboy & Ben Schwartz Benedict Samuel & Steve Valentine at el, director Robert Zemeckis
I threw myself at the Foreign Office. They could have whatever part of me they wanted. Gladly. Storyville: Accidental Anarchist: Life Without Government, Carne Ross, BBC 2017
We were the good guys. Making the world a better place. ibid.
My main responsibility was Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction. ibid.
What sanctions did to the Iraqi people was horrific. We knew there was suffering. ibid.
Today I feel shame. ibid.
You just felt the drums of war beating. ibid.
I was looking for political ideals I could believe in … My government was preparing for war. ibid.
But I knew that my government’s real assessment of Iraq’s alleged threat was very different from what our leaders were claiming in public. ibid.
‘There isn’t really any power here. You get here and it’s like the Wizard of Oz.’ ibid. Rory Stewart MP
So in the most demanding crises, ground-up networks work better than top-down government. This was what I was looking for. ibid.
‘It was the first time that I’d ever been in town where the working class was in the saddle … Above all there was a belief in the revolution, in the future. A feeling of having suddenly emerged into a era of equality and freedom. Human beings were trying to behave as human beings.’ ibid. Orwell’s ‘Homage to Catalonia’
‘Anarchy is on trial … Make examples of them, hang them … save our institutions, our society.’ Julius S Grinnell, prosecutor of anarchists, cited Plutocracy: Political Repression in the USA I: Divide and Rule, 2015
Another important Labour Leader imprisoned under the Espionage Act was the anarchist Ricardo Flores Magon. Plutocracy III: Class War, 2017