Born: December 9, 1842, Moscow, Russia
Died: February 8, 1921, Dmitrov, Russia


"ANARCHISM (from the Gr. 'an' and 'archos', contrary to authority), the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government — harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being."

"The law is an adroit mixture of customs that are beneficial to society, and could be followed even if no law existed, and others that are of advantage to a ruling minority, but harmful to the masses of men, and can be enforced on them only by terror."

Born: May 30, 1814, Torzhok, Russia
Died: July 1, 1876, Bern, Switzerland


"A Boss in Heaven is the best excuse for a boss on earth, therefore If God did exist, he would have to be abolished."

"Powerful states can maintain themselves only by crime, little states are virtuous only by weakness."

"From each according to his faculties; to each according to his needs."

Born: 1853, Texas, United States
Died: March 7, 1942, Chicago, Illinois, United States


"Let every dirty, lousy tramp arm himself with a revolver or knife on the steps of the palace of the rich and stab or shoot their owners as they come out. Let us kill them without mercy, and let it be a war of extermination and without pity."

"You are not absolutely defenceless. For the torch of the incendiary, which has been known with impunity, cannot be wrested from you."

"Never be deceived that the rich will permit you to vote away their wealth."

Chicago Police Department description of Lucy Parsons: "More dangerous than a thousand rioters"

Born: June 27, 1869, Kaunas, Lithuania
Died: May 14, 1940, Toronto, Canada


"If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal."

"The most violent element in society is ignorance."

"If I can't dance, it's not my revolution."

"One cannot be too extreme in dealing with social ills; the extreme thing is generally the true thing."

Born: unknown
Dead: unknown

"We learned a long time ago that we should never subject ourselves to the schedules of the powerful. We had to follow our own calendar and impose it on those above."

"What we're going to do is shake this country up from below, pick it up and turn it on its head."

Born: August 8, 1879, Morelos, Mexico
Dead: April 10, 1919, Morelos, Mexico

"It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees."

"I forgive those who murder and steal because they did it out of necessity, but a traitor - never!"

Born: October 24, 1868, Saint-Mandé, France
Died: September 8, 1969, Digne-les-Bains, France


"La faiblesse de nos sens ne permet à chacun de nous que de prendre conscience d’une partie bien minime du monde."

Born: October 7, 1879, Gävle, Sweden
Died: November 19, 1915, Utah, United States


"Workers of the world awaken. Break your chains, demand your rights.
All the wealth you make is taken, by exploiting parasites.
Shall you kneel in deep submission from your cradle to your grave?
Is the height of your ambition to be a good and willing slave?"

"I'll take the shooting. I'm used to that. I've been shot a few times in the past, and I guess I can stand it again." (when asked by the judge if he would rather be shot or hanged)

Born: November 17, 1866 Leslie, Michigan USA
Died: June 20, 1912 Chicago, Illinois USA

"If this is the price to be paid for an idea, then let us pay. There is no need of being troubled about it, afraid, or ashamed. This is the time to stand up boldly and say, “Yes, I believe in the displacement of this system of injustice by a just one; I believe in the end of starvation, exposure, and the crimes caused by them; I believe in the human soul regnant over all laws which man has made or will make; I believe there is no peace now, and there never will be peace, so long as man rules over man; I believe in the total disintegration and dissolution of the principle and practice of authority; I am an Anarchist, and if for this you condemn me, I stand ready to receive your condemnation.”"

"I die, as I have lived, a free spirit, an Anarchist, owing no allegiance to rulers, heavenly or earthly."

Born: December 14, 1853, Santa Maria Capua Vetere, Italy
Died: July 22, 1932, Rome, Italy


"We anarchists do not want to emancipate the people; we want the people to emancipate themselves."

"We follow ideas and not men, and rebel against this habit of embodying a principle in a man."

Born: March 1, 1918, Arezzo, Italy
Died: April 13, 1949, London, England

"It is from an anarchist point of view and without being hampered by false loyalty or opportunist considerations, but also with modesty and comprehension that we should try to draw the lessons of the Spanish Revolution. I am convinced that our movement will be more demoralised and weakened by blind and uncritical admiration than by frank admission of past mistakes."

Born: July 14, 1896, León, Spain
Died: November 20, 1936, Madrid, Spain


"No government fights fascism to destroy it. When the bourgeoisie sees that power is slipping out of its hands, it brings up fascism to hold onto their privileges."

"It is possible that only a hundred of us will survive, but with that hundred we shall enter Saragossa, beat Fascism and proclaim libertarian communism!"

"The only church that illuminates is a burning church."

Born: February 12, 1905, Madrid, Spain
Died: January 14, 1994, Toulouse, France

"Authority is something from which we are constantly subtracting, of which there remains always a residue, and which we attempt to make smaller and smaller."

"We need no messiah and no sterile conception of a god menacing us with hell and purgatory."

"We have confirmed something we only knew in theory, namely that revolution, in which uncontrolled and uncontrollable forces operate imperiously, is blind and destructive, grandiose and cruel."