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Peter Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin Books

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“They fear that without compulsion the masses will not work. But during our own lifetime, have we not heard the same fears expressed twice? Once, by the anti-abolitionists in America before the emancipation of the Negroes, and, for a second time, by the Russian nobility before the liberation of the serfs? 'Without the whip the Negro will not work,' said the anti- abolitionist. 'Free from their master's supervision the serfs will leave the fields uncultivated,' said the Russian serf-owners. It was the refrain of the French noblemen in 1789, the refrain of the Middle Ages, a refrain as old as the world, and we shall hear it every time there is a question of sweeping away an injustice. And each time actual facts give it the lie. The liberated peasant of 1792 ploughed with an eager energy, unknown to his ancestor so, the emancipated Negro works more than his fathers; and the Russian peasant, after having honoured the honeymoon of his emancipation by celebrating Fridays as well as Sundays, has taken up work with an eagerness proportionate to the completeness of his liberation. There, where the soil is his, he works desperately; that is the exact word for it. The anti-abolitionist refrain can be of value to slave-owners; as to the slaves them- selves, they know what it is worth, as they know its motive.”

WorkSlaveryCommunismEmancipationWage LaborSerfdom
Book:The Conquest of Bread
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“Each individual is a cosmos of organs, each organ is a cosmos of cells, each cell is a cosmos of infinitely small ones; and in this complex world, the well-being of the whole depends entirely on the sum of well-being enjoyed by each of the least microscopic particles of organized matter. A whole revolution is thus produced in the philosophy of life.”

WorldWellsMatterPhilosophyWholeIndividualLife PhilosophyRevolutionDependsComplexesCellsEnjoyedWell BeingOrganizedCosmosOrgansParticles
Book:Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings
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“The education we all receive from the State, at school and after, has so warped our minds that the very notion of freedom ends up by being lost, and disguised in servitude. It is a sad sight to see those who believe themselves to be revolutionaries unleashing their hatred on the anarchist just because his views on freedom go beyond their petty and narrow concepts of freedom learned in the State school.”

MindBelieveEndsStatesSchoolLostViewsConceptsHatredSightNotionRevolutionaryPettyAnarchismAnarchistServitudeUnleashing
Author:Peter Kropotkin
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“A different conception of society, very different from that which now prevails, is in process of formation. Under the name of Anarchy, a new interpretation of the past and present life of society arises, giving at the same time a forecast as regards its future, both conceived in the same spirit as the above-mentioned interpretation in natural sciences. Anarchy, therefore, appears as a constituent part of the new philosophy, and that is why Anarchists come in contact, on so many points, with the greatest thinkers and poets of the present day.”

GivingDifferentPhilosophyPastSpiritNamesProcessNaturalPoetRegardAriseContactInterpretationConceptionThinkerAnarchyAnarchismAnarchistFormationPresent DayConstituentsPast And PresentNatural ScienceForecastsPresent Life
Author:Peter Kropotkin
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“ANARCHISM (from the Gr. , and , 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.”

NeedsGovernmentLawNamesGivenPrinciplesGroupsTheoryAuthorityHarmonyInfiniteSakeSatisfactionProductionsVariousContraryVarietyObedienceAspirationAgreementCivilizedConsumptionSubmissionAnarchismTerritorialTheory Of Life
Book:Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings
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“Cleverly assorted scraps of spurious science are inculcated upon the children to prove necessity of law; obedience to the law is made a religion; moral goodness and the law of the masters are fused into one and the same divinity. The historical hero of the schoolroom is the man who obeys the law, and defends it against rebels.”

MenChildrenMadeLawMoralHe ManMastersHeroProveGoodnessHistoricalObedienceDivinityRebelScrapAssortedMoral Goodness
Book:Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings
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“The confused mass of rules of conduct called law, which has been bequeathed to us by slavery, serfdom, feudalism, and royalty, has taken the place of those stone monsters, before whom human victims used to be immolated, and whom slavish savages dared not even touch lest they should be slain by the thunderbolts of heaven.”

ShouldHumansHas BeensLawUsedHeavenTakenMassStonesVictimSlaveryMonstersUsed To BeConfusedSavagesRoyaltyFeudalismThunderbolts
Book:Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings
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“While in the course of ages the nucleus of social custom inscribed in law has been subjected to but slight and gradual modifications, the other portion has been largely developed in directions indicated by the interests of the dominant classes, and to the injury of the classes they oppress.”

Has BeensAgeLawCoursesSocialInterestClassInjuryCustomsPortionsDominantIn-lawsModificationNucleus
Book:Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings
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“The millions of laws which exist for the regulation of humanity appear upon investigation to be divided into three principal categories: protection of property, protection of persons, protection of government. And by analyzing each of these three categories, we arrive at the same logical and necessary conclusion: the uselessness and hurtfulness of law.”

PersonsGovernmentLawHumanityThreeMillionsPropertyProtectionConclusionLogicalCategoriesDividedRegulationInvestigationPrincipalAnalyzingUselessness
Author:Peter Kropotkin
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“The whole aspect of the universe changes with this new conception. The idea of force governing the world, of pre-established law, preconceived harmony, disappears to make room for the harmony that Fourier had caught a glimpse of: the one which results from the disorderly and incoherent movements of numberless hosts of matter, each of which goes its own way and all of which hold each other in equilibrium.”

WorldWayIdeasMatterWholeLawUniverseForceRoomsResultsMovementAspectHarmonyCaughtDisappearConceptionHostGlimpseGoverningEquilibriumFourier
Book:Fugitive writings
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“Either the State for ever, crushing individual and local life, taking over in all fields of human activity, bringing with it its wars and its domestic struggles for power, its palace revolutions which only replace one tyrant by another, and inevitably at the end of this development there is ... death! Or the destruction of States, and new life starting again in thousands of centers on the principle of the lively initiative of the individual and groups and that of free agreement.The choice lies with you!”

HumansWarEndsStatesLyingChoicesIndividualPrinciplesStruggleGroupsFieldsRevolutionDevelopmentActivityDestructionStartingLocalsCrushAgreementTyrantsInitiativeNew LifePalacesLivelyHuman Activity
Author:Peter Kropotkin
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“But times and tempers are changed. Rebels are everywhere to be found who no longer wish to obey the law without knowing whence it comes, what are its uses, and whither arises the obligation to submit to it, and the reverence with which it is encompassed. The rebels of our day are criticizing the very foundations of society which have hitherto been held sacred, and first and foremost amongst them that fetish, law.”

FirstsUseLawFoundWishKnowingChangedFoundationSacredAriseObligationCriticizeRebelTemperReverenceSubmitFetish
Author:Peter Kropotkin
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“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?”

MenChildrenPersonsFactsDesireNextMemoriesGenerationsStriveImmortalityImpressedNext GenerationGood PersonAfter DeathNoticingPassing AwayDesire To Live
Book:Memoirs of a Revolutionist
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“My brother could not write about trifles. Even in society he became animated only when some serious discussion was engaged in, and he complained of feeling 'a dull pain in the brain'--a physical pain, as he used to say--when he was with people who cared only for small talk.”

PeopleWritingFeelingsPainUsedBrainSeriousBrotherDiscussionEngagedMy BrotherDullAnimatedTriflesPhysical PainSmall Talk
Book:Memoirs of a Revolutionist
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“Man is appealed to be guided in his acts, not merely by love, which is always personal, or at best tribal, but by his perception of his oneness with each human being. In the practice of mutual aid, which we can re-trace to the earliest beginnings of evolution, we thus find the positive and undoubted origin of our ethical conceptions; and we can affirm that in the ethical progress of man, mutual support- not mutual struggle- has had the leading part.”

MenHumansHuman BeingsPracticeSupportStruggleProgressEvolutionPerceptionEthicsAidsOnenessMutualEthicalConceptionMutual AidMutual Support
Book:Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution
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