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Murray Bookchin

Murray Bookchin Quotes

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Famous Murray Bookchin Quotes

“I would like to see a critical mass of very gifted anarchists come together in an appropriate place in order to do highly productive work. That's it. I don't know why that can't be done except for the fact that I think that people mistrust their own ideals today. I don't think that they don't believe in them; I think they mistrust the viability of them. They're afraid to commit themselves to their ideals.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsBelieveDoneFactsTodayTogetherOrderMassIdealsDon't BelieveCriticalCommitProductiveAppropriateGiftedAnarchistMistrustCritical MassProductive Work
Author:Murray Bookchin
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“Anarchists should get together who agree, and develop their gifts at a critical point, in a critical place, and form genuine affinity groups in areas where they can have certain results, notable results - not move into areas of great resistance where they're almost certain to be crushed, defeated, demoralized.”

ShouldTogetherMovingFormCertainResultsGroupsAreasAgreeCriticalGenuineResistanceDefeatedCrushedAnarchistNotableGet TogetherAffinityDemoralized
Author:Murray Bookchin
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“Humanity has passed through a long history of one-sidedness and of a social condition that has always contained the potential of destruction, despite its creative achievements in technology. The great project of our time must be to open the other eye: to see all-sidedly and wholly, to heal and transcend the cleavage between humanity and nature that came with early wisdom.”

LongEyeHumanitySocialVisionTechnologyCreativeSeeingConditionsAchievementProjectsDestructionHistoricalHealDespiteOur TimeAweSocial ConditionsCleavageHumanity And Nature
Author:Murray Bookchin
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“We are part of nature, a product of a long evolutionary journey. To some degree, we carry the ancient oceans in our blood. … Our brains and nervous systems did not suddenly spring into existence without long antecedents in natural history. That which we most prize as integral to our humanity - our extraordinary capacity to think on complex conceptual levels - can be traced back to the nerve network of primitive invertebrates, the ganglia of a mollusk, the spinal cord of a fish, the brain of an amphibian, and the cerebral cortex of a primate.”

ThinkingLongHumanityNaturalLevelsExistenceBrainBloodJourneyProductsDegreesOceanSpringCapacityComplexesExtraordinaryAncientFishesNervousPrizeNervesPrimitiveNervous SystemCordsCerebralPrimatesNatural HistorySpinal CordAmphibiansMollusksInvertebrates
Author:Murray Bookchin
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“Until society can be reclaimed by an undivided humanity that will use its collective wisdom, cultural achievements, technological innovations, scientific knowledge, and innate creativity for its own benefit and for that of the natural world, all ecological problems will have their roots in social problems.”

WorldUseProblemHumanitySocialNaturalCreativityAchievementBenefitsRootsInnovationCollectivesTechnologicalInnateNatural WorldEcologicalSocial ProblemsScientific KnowledgeCollective Wisdom
Book:The Murray Bookchin Reader
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“If we recognise that every ecosystem can also be viewed as a food web, we can think of it as a circular, interlacing nexus of plant animal relationships (rather than a stratified pyramid with man at the apex)… Each species, be it a form of bacteria or deer, is knitted together in a network of interdependence, however indirect the links may be.”

IfsThinkingMenMayTogetherFormAnimalPlantSpeciesLinksRecognisePyramidsEcosystemsDeerInterdependenceIndirectBacteriaApexNexus
Author:Murray Bookchin
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“To speak of ‘limits to growth’ under a capitalistic market economy is as meaningless as to speak of limits of warfare under a warrior society. The moral pieties, that are voiced today by many well-meaning environmentalists, are as naive as the moral pieties of multinationals are manipulative. Capitalism can no more be ‘persuaded’ to limit growth than a human being can be ‘persuaded’ to stop breathing. Attempts to ‘green’ capitalism, to make it ‘ecological’, are doomed by the very nature of the system as a system of endless growth.”

HumansWellsTodaySpeakGrowthNatureHuman BeingsMoralEconomySocietyLimitsCapitalismGreenEnvironmentalBreatheEndlessWarriorBreathingMeaninglessWarfareDoomedEcologyPersuasionNaiveAttemptingPietyEcologicalEnvironmentalistMarket EconomyManipulativeMultinationalsNaivetyNaivete
Author:Murray Bookchin
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“Power to the people' can only be put into practice when the power exercised by social elites is dissolved into the people. Each individual can then take control of his daily life. If 'Power to the people' means nothing more than power to the 'leaders' of the people, then the people remain an undifferentiated, manipulatable mass, as powerless after the revolution as they were before. In the last analysis, the people can never have power until they disappear as a 'people.”

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Author:Murray Bookchin
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“In our own time we have seen domination spread over the social landscape to a point where it is beyond all human control. Compared to this stupendous mobilization of materials, of wealth, of human intellect, of human labor for the single goal of domination, all other recent human achievements pale to almost trivial significance. Our art, science, medicine, literature, music and charitable acts seem like mere droppings from a table on which gory feasts on the spoils of conquest have engaged the attention of a system whose appetite for rule is utterly unrestrained.”

HumansArtSeemsLiteratureSocialGoalWealthAttentionMaterialsAchievementLaborTablesMedicineMereSpreadIntellectLandscapeEngagedSignificanceAppetitePaleConquestDominationSpoilDroppingCharitableMobilization
Author:Murray Bookchin
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