Peter Kropotkin Quotes

“Lenin is not comparable to any revolutionary figure in history. Revolutionaries have had ideals. Lenin has none.”

“In fact, we know full well today that it is futile to speak of liberty as long as economic slavery exists.”

“It is only those who do nothing who make no mistake.”

“When ignorance reigns in society and disorder in the minds of men, laws are multiplied.”

“Be strong. Overflow with emotional and intellectual energy, and you will spread your intelligence, your love, your energy of action broadcast among others! This is what all moral teaching comes to.”

“Struggle so that all may live this rich, overflowing life. And be sure that in this struggle you will find a joy greater than anything else can give.”

“Men passionately desire to live after death, but they often pass away without noticing the fact that the memory of a really good person always lives. It is impressed upon the next generation, and is transmitted again to the children. Is that not an immortality worth striving for?”

“When one has talent, everything contributes to its development.”

“Don’t compete! — competition is always injurious to the species, and you have plenty of resources to avoid it!”

“In the long run the practice of solidarity proves much more advantageous to the species than the development of individuals endowed with predatory inclinations.”

“Prisons are universities of crime, maintained by the state.”

“In our civilized societies we are rich. Why then are the many poor? Why this painful drudgery for the masses? Why, even to the best paid workman, this uncertainty for the morrow, in the midst of all the wealth inherited from the past, and in spite of the powerful means of production, which could ensure comfort to all, in return for a few hours of daily toil?”

“Letters and science will only take their proper place in the work of human development when, freed from all mercenary bondage, they will be exclusively cultivated by those who love them, and for those who love them.”

“Poverty, we have said elsewhere, was the primary cause of wealth. It was poverty that created the first capitalist; because, before accumulating "surplus value," of which we hear so much, men had to be sufficiently destitute to consent to sell their labour, so as not to die of hunger. It was poverty that made capitalists.”

“Well-being for all is not a dream.”