“Politics is a pendulum whose swings between anarchy and tyranny are fueled by perpetually rejuvenated illusions.”
Albert Einstein
“Better the rule of One, whom all obey, than to let clamorous demagogues betray our freedom with the kiss of anarchy.”
Oscar Wilde
Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience & through rebellion.
— Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism, in “Fortnightly Review” (London, Feb. 1891; reprinted. 1895)
“When you break the big laws, you do not get liberty; you do not even get anarchy. You get the small laws.”
G. K. Chesterton
“Anarchism, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government.”
Strider1957, Emma Goldman
“Our government teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.”
Louis D. Brandeis (American Supreme Court Justice, 1856-1941)
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.”
William Butler Yeats (Irish prose Writer, Dramatist and Poet. Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. 1865-1939)
“The Revolution evaporates, & leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy. The chains of tormented mankind are made out of red tape.”
— Franz Kafka
“Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins … Society is in every state a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.”
– Thomas Paine, Common Sense;
‘In History, stagnant waters, whether they be the stagnant waters of custom or those of despotism, harbour no life; life is dependent on the ripples created by a few eccentric individuals. In homage to that life & vitality, the community has to brave certain perils & must countenance a measure of heresy. One must live dangerously if one wants to live at all.’
— Herbert Read, art critic, anarchist beknighted by the Queen of England
“The first duty of the revolutionary is to get away with it.”
– Abbie Hoffman
“Three-fourths of philosophy & literature is the talk of people trying to convince themselves that they really like the cage they were tricked into entering.”
— Gary Snyder, Zen Anarchist Poet
“There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.”
— Howard Zinn
Anarchism is a tendency in the history of human thought & action which seeks to identify coercive, authoritarian, & hierarchic structures of all kinds & to challenge their legitimacy — & if they cannot justify their legitimacy, which is quite commonly the case, to work to undermine them & expand the scope of freedom.
— Noam Chomsky
“The roots of the word ‘anarchy’ are an archos, no leaders, which is not really about the kind of chaos that most people imagine when anarchy is mentioned. I think anarchy is about taking personal responsibility for yourself. I believe that fascism is about abandoning your personal responsibility to the group or to society. You say, ‘In unity there is strength,’ which inevitably will become, ‘in uniformity there is strength.’ It’s better if all those sticks are the same size and length, because then they’ll make a tidier bundle, which consequently leads to the kind of fascism we had in the ‘30s and ‘40s.”
– Alan Moore (Watchmen, V For Vendetta, From Hell)
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.
— Edward Abbey
“Our government is a bird with two right wings…They’re devoted to the perpetuation & spread of corporate capitalism.”
— Lawrence Ferlinghetti, author/poet/painter/beatnik/publisher/owner City Lights Books
most of the above are from http://recollectionbooks.com/siml/library/anarchQuotes.htm