Alexander Berkman Quotes

Man's inhumanity to man is not the last word. The truth lies deeper. It is economic slavery, the savage struggle for a crumb, that has converted mankind into wolves and sheep. ~ Alexander Berkman

The man who can face vilification and disgrace, who can stand up against the popular current, even against his friends and his country when he know he is right, who can defy those in authority over him, who can take punishment and prison and remain steadfast-that is a man of courage. The fellow whom you taunt as a 'slacker' because he refuses to turn murderer-he needs courage. But do you need much courage just to obey orders, to do as you are told and to fall in line with thousands of others to the tune of general approval and the Star Spangled Banner? ~ Alexander Berkman

Are you not compelled to work for an employer? Your need compels you just as the highwayman's gun. You must live ... You can't work for yourself ... The factories, machinery, and tools belong to the employing class, so you must hire yourself out to that class in order to work and live. Whatever you work at, whoever your employer may be, it always comes to the same: you must workfor him. You can't help yourself. You are compelled. ~ Alexander Berkman

What is this thing we call government? Is it anything but organized violence? The law orders you to obey, and if you don't obey, it will compel you by force - all governments, all law and authority finally rest on force and violence, on punishment or fear of punishment. ~ Alexander Berkman

Violence is the method of ignorance, the weapon of the weak. The strong of heart and brain need no violence, for they are irresistible in their consciousness of being right. ~ Alexander Berkman

War paralyzes your courage and deadens the spirit of true manhood. ~ Alexander Berkman

Certainly the worker has nothing to lose by a change from government and capitalism to a condition of no government, of anarchy. ~ Alexander Berkman

Alexander Berkman was a self-declared atheist attempting to lift the stultifying fog of the gods from the mind of humankind. ~ David Burns

If you can see, hear, feel, and think, you should know that King Dollar rules the United States, and that the workers are robbed and exploited in this country to the heart's content of the masters.
If you are not deaf, dumb, and blind, then you know that the American bourgeois democracy and capitalistic civilization are the worst enemies of labor and progress, and that instead of protecting them, you should help to fight to destroy them. ~ Alexander Berkman

Anarchism means voluntary co-operation instead of forced participation. It means harmony and order in place of interference and disorder. ~ Alexander Berkman

War means blind obedience, unthinking stupidity, brutish callousness, wanton destruction, and irresponsible murder. ~ Alexander Berkman

Any one who tells you that Anarchists don't believe in organization is talking nonsense. Organization is everything, and everything is organization. ~ Alexander Berkman

In an absolutism, the autocrat is visible and tangible. The real despotism of republican institutions is far deeper, more insidious, because it rests on the popular delusion of self-government and independence. That is the subtle source of democratic tyranny, and, as such, it cannot be reached with a bullet. ~ Alexander Berkman

It is the system, rather than individuals, that is the source of pollution and degradation. My prison-house environment is but another manifestation of the Midas-hand, whose cursed touch turns everything to the brutal service of Mammon. ~ Alexander Berkman

What is a fanatic but a man whose faith is impregnable to doubt? It is the faith that moves mountains, the faith that accomplishes. Revolutions are not made by Hamlets. The traditional "great" man, the "big personality" of current conception, may give to the world new thoughts, noble vision, inspiration. But the man that "sees every side" cannot lead, cannot control. He is too conscious of the fallibility of all theories, even of thought itself, to be a fighter in any cause. ~ Alexander Berkman

These days even mere attempts to improve capitalism are often called 'Socialism,' while in reality they are only reforms. ~ Alexander Berkman

Socialism, like Christianity destroyed itself to gain power ~ Alexander Berkman

No intelligent radical can fail to realize the need of the rational education of the young. The rearing of the child must become a process of liberation by methods which shall not impose ready-made ideas, but which should aid the child's natural self-unfoldment. The purpose of such an education is not to force the child's adaptation to accepted concepts. but to give free play to his [and her] originality, initiative, and individuality. Only by freeing education from compulsion and restraint can we create the environment for the manifestation of the spontaneous interest and inner incentives on the part of the child. Only thus can we supply rational conditions favorable to the development of the child's natural tendencies and his latent emotional and mental faculties. Such methods of education, essentially aiding the child's imitative quality and ardor for knowledge, will develop a generation of healthy intellectual independence. It will produce men and women capable, in the words of Francisco Ferrer, "of evolving without stopping, of destroying and renewing their environment without cessation; of renewing themselves also; always ready to accept what is best, happy in the triumph of new ideas, aspiring to live multiple lives in one life. ~ Alexander Berkman

The cure for evil and disorder is more liberty, not suppression. ~ Alexander Berkman

Anarchy: It is NOT bombs, disorder or chaos. It is NOT robbery and murder. It is NOT a war of each against all. It is NOT a return to barbarism or to the wild state of man. Anarchism is the very opposite of all that. ~ Alexander Berkman

I have a better idea since you're being a hard ass about it all. I'm in the mood for something more satisfying than carrots or an apple anyway." Avery bumped into Kane as he exited his closet, pulling a T-shirt over his head. His mister's nightly wardrobe always consisted of a soft cotton shirt and pajama bottoms, which he promptly removed before he crawled into their bed. Avery slid his hands up Kane's chest, keeping Kane from pulling the cotton material down the rest of the way, and leaned in, swiping his tongue across the exposed nipple. ~ Kindle Alexander

President Bush and I had asked Congress to appropriate a half-billion dollars to school vouchers. We didn't get it, and we were disappointed. But we did not go out and form a corporation to pay for it. That would have been a problem. ~ Lamar Alexander

What is one thing today becomes quite another thing tomorrow. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

Elizabeth [Alexander] is right, of course. It's a stirring fact that our slave ancestors left behind not documents of property but an incredible amount of cultural wealth. It is a tragedy that we are only able to imagine their individual contributions to that collective wealth- and the worlds they might have made had they been free. ~ Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Don't insult the hair. ~ Alexander Engel-Hodgkinson

In order to educate man to a new longing, everyday familiar objects must be shown to him with totally unexpected perspectives and in unexpected situations. New objects should be depicted from different sides in order to provide a complete impression of the object. ~ Alexander Rodchenko

If the sword of oppression be permitted to lop off one limb without opposition, reiterated strokes will soon dismember the whole body. ~ Alexander Hamilton

The representatives of the people, in a popular assembly, seem sometimes to fancy that they are the people themselves, and betray strong symptoms of impatience and disgust at the least sign of opposition from any other quarter; as if the exercise of its rights, by either the executive or judiciary, were a breach of their privilege and an outrage to their dignity. ~ Alexander Hamilton

Our selves are are rough and unrehearsed tales we tell the world. ~ William Alexander

Tania." Her voice was soothing. "There is a second love. And a third love. And if you're lucky, a fourth and a fifth, too. ~ Paullina Simons

I belong to a culture that includes Proust, Henry James, Tchaikovsky, Cole Porter, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Alexander the Great, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Christopher Marlowe, Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Tennessee Williams, Byron, E.M. Forster, Lorca, Auden, Francis Bacon, James Baldwin, Harry Stack Sullivan, John Maynard Keynes, Dag Hammarskjold… These are not invisible men. Poor Bruce. Poor frightened Bruce. Once upon a time you wanted to be a soldier.
Bruce, did you know that an openly gay Englishman was as responsible as any man for winning the Second World War? His name was Alan Turing and he cracked the Germans' Enigma code so the Allies knew in advance what the Nazis were going to do - and when the war was over he committed suicide he was so hounded for being gay. Why don't they teach any of this in the schools? If they did, maybe he wouldn't have killed himself and maybe you wouldn't be so terrified of who you are. The only way we'll have real pride is when we demand recognition of a culture that isn't just sexual. It's all there - all through history we've been there; but we have to claim it, and identify who was in it, and articulate what's in our minds and hearts and all our creative contributions to this earth. And until we do that, and until we organize ourselves block by neighborhood by city by state into a united visible community that fights back, we're doomed. That's how I want to be defined: as one of the men who fought the war. ~ Larry Kramer

This was a townscape raised in the teeth of cold winds from the east; a city of winding cobbled streets and haughty pillars; a city of dark nights and candlelight, and intellect. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

My suitcase must absolutely contain my iPod. ~ Alexander Ludwig

If we {Federalists] must have an enemy at the head of government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom we are not responsible, who will not involve our party in the disgrace of his foolish and bad measures. Under Adams as under Jefferson, the government shall sink. The party in the hands of whose chief it shall sink will sink with it - and the advantage will be all on the side of his adversaries. ~ Alexander Hamilton

For me, you've got to play football first. We're not trying to be accountants. The money takes care of itself. That's kind of how I think anyway. ~ Shaun Alexander

Who dare to love their country, and be poor. ~ Alexander Pope

All candidate moves should be identified at once and listed in one's head. This job cannot be done piecemeal, by first examining one move and then look at another. ~ Alexander Kotov

There is absolutely nothing surprising about a severely stigmatized group embracing their stigma. Psychologists have long observed that when people feel hopelessly stigmatized, a powerful coping strategy–often the only apparent route to self-esteem–is embracing one's stigmatized identity. Hence, 'black is beautiful' and 'gay pride'–slogans and anthems of the political movements aimed at ending not only legal discrimination, but the stigma that justified it. Indeed, the act of embracing one's stigma is never merely a psychological maneuver; it is a political act–an act of resistance and deviance in a society that seeks to demean a group based on an inalterable trait. As a gay activist once put it, 'Only by fully embracing the stigma itself can one neutralize the sting and make it laughable. ~ Michelle Alexander

The affluent white liberals who were pressing the legal claims of blacks and other minorities "were often sheltered, in their private lives, and largely immune to the costs of implementing minority claims."58 This reality made it possible for conservatives to characterize the "liberal Democratic establishment" as being out of touch with ordinary working people - thus resolving one of the central problems facing conservatives: how to persuade poor and working-class voters to join in alliance with corporate interests and the conservative elite. By ~ Michelle Alexander

And so they lived many happy years, and the promised tasks were accomplished. Yet long afterward, when all had passed away into distant memory, there were many who wondered whether King Taran, Queen Eilonwy, and their companions had indeed walked the earth, or whether they had been no more than dreams in a tale set down to beguile children. And, in time, only the bards knew the truth of it. ~ Lloyd Alexander

The turtles and birds who lived on the islands were also very friendly, as they hardly ever saw any humans and were always pleased to have some company. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

Rich people are just people," said Mma Ramotswe. "I have not met a rich person yet who isn't just the same as us. Being happy or unhappy has nothing to do with being rich. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

If I'm playing hockey, I want to win all the (trophies) I can. ~ Alexander Ovechkin

There is no universally valid idea from which man has not woven a rope to bind his own feet, and if possible, the feet of others as well, so that the free product of his creativity becomes a punitive power over him; no true, genuine relationship between people which they have not turned into mutual enslavement. Love, friendship, tribal loyalty, and finally even love of freedom have served as inexhaustible sources of moral oppression and servitude.... Humans are eternally on their knees before one or the other - the golden calf or duty imposed from outside.... It doesn't enter their heads that there is also something within them worthy of respect. ~ Alexander Herzen

I have no aspiration here to reclaim mystery and paradox from whatever territory they might inhabit, for there is, indeed, often a killing in a kiss, a mercy in the slap that heats your face . . . There is, nevertheless, a particular poverty in those alloplasts who, addressing tragedy, seek to subdistinguish motives beyond those we have best, because nearest, at hand, and so it is with love and hate--emotions upon whose necks, whether wrung or wreathed, may be found the oldest fingerprints of man. A simple truth intrudes: the basic instincts of every man to every man are known. But who knows when or where or how? For the answers to such questions, summon Augurello, your personal jurisconsult and theological wiseacre, to teach you about primal reality and then to dispel those complexities and cabals you crouch behind in this sad, psychiatric century you call your own. It is the anti-labyrinths of the world that scare. Here is a story for you. Your chair. ~ Alexander Theroux

Perhaps this account of a man who "saw" everything will play some part in the difficult course that lies ahead. ~ Alexander R. Luria

After more hours in a carriage with Archer than he ever wanted to experience again, Grey returned to Ryeton House. All he wanted to do was find Rose, climb into bed with her, and sleep for the rest of the day. Honestly, sleep. Entwine his legs with hers, sink into her arms, bury his face in the sweet warm hollow of her neck…
"You coming?"
Grey blinked and turned his head. He was standing in the drive with Archer and the others watching him expectantly.
Archer shook his head, clearly exasperated. "Are we going inside, Your Grace, or shall we conduct our business on the street for all Mayfair to witness?"
"Inside," he mumbled. Could he be any more of an idiot? He walked toward the door, the others falling into step behind him. Archer took Bronte's arm and led their pale, scared-looking sister into the house. Grey hadn't had much of a chance to talk to her, to let her know that everything would be fine. She probably thought he was going to rant and rave and tell her she could never see Alexander again.
Truth be told, ranting and raving was tempting. And a little fear was a small price to pay for what she'd put him through-and for thinking so ill of him to begin with. When had he ever given her reason to think him a monster? ~ Kathryn Smith

Mr. J.L.B Matekoni," she asked, "do you think that our souls grow as we get older?"
He did not answer immediately, but when he did, she thought his answer quite perfect. "Yes," he said. "Our souls get wider. They grow like the branches of a tree--growing outwards. And more birds come and make their homes in these branches. And sing a bit more." He stopped and looked a little awkward. "I'm talking nonsense, Mma."
"You're not," she said. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

In winter, when the dismal rain
Comes down in slanting lines,
And Wind, that grand old harper, smote
His thunder-harp of pines. ~ Alexander Smith

Poetry is what you find
in the dirt in the corner,
overhear on the bus, God
in the details, the only way
to get from here to there. ~ Elizabeth Alexander

The bullet is a mad thing, only the bayonet knows what it is about. ~ Alexander Suvorov

For it is known that love creates a bond that unites lovers until the end of time. ~ Felix Alexander

I stand and grab a hefty bottle of perfume from the bathroom shelf and return to the bedroom door. It's not much of a weapon, I know, but it's heavy and square, and hitting someone over the head with a glass brick has got to be better than bitch-slapping them. ~ Nick Alexander

This is a major, wide-ranging, and comprehensive book. A philosophical investigation that is also a literary and historical study, Truth and Truthfulness asks how and why we have come to think of accuracy, sincerity, and authenticity as virtues. Bernard Williams' account of their emergence is as detailed and imaginative as his defense of their importance is spirited and provocative. Williams asks hard questions, and gives them straightforward and controversial answers. His book does not simply describe and advocate these virtues of truthfulness; it manifests them. ~ Alexander Nehamas

Not all gays respond to the same stuff. Would Alexander the Great have loved Auntie Mame? ~ Bruce Bawer

True love never has a happy ending, because there is no ending to true love. ~ Alexander The Great