Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Rudolf Rocker

Quote by Rudolf Rocker

“Asceticism in most cases is either the result of a sordid imagination or of passion diverted from its natural course, and experience has shown that when the protection of public morals is entrusted to its votaries, the consequences are usually appalling.”

Quote by Rudolf Rocker

Create image

Author

Rudolf Rocker
Rudolf Rocker

Rudolf Rocker (March 25, 1873 - September 19, 1958) was a German socialist, anarchist, writer, and translator, known for his contributions to anarchist theory and social philosophy. He is considered one of the most important anarchists of the 20th century. more

You May Also Like

“Political rights do not exist because they have been legally set down on a piece of paper, but only when they have become the ingrown habit of a people, and when any attempt to impair them will meet with the violent resistance of the populace... One compels respect from others when he knows how to defend his dignity as a human being... The people owe all the political rights and privileges which we enjoy today in greater or lesser measure, not to the good will of their governments, but to their own strength.”

PeopleKnowsHumansHas BeensGovernmentTodayPoliticalIndividualEnjoyHuman BeingsKnow HowGreaterPiecesRightsHabitPaperDignityPrivilegeViolentResistanceGood WillIndividual RightsPolitical RightsRights And PrivilegesEnjoy Today
Author:Rudolf Rocker
Create image

“People forgot that industry is not an end in itself, but should be only a means to insure to man his material subsistence and to make accessible to him the blessings of a higher intellectual culture. Where industry is everything and man is nothing begins the realm of a ruthless economic despotism whose workings are no less disastrous than those of any political despotism.”

PeopleMenShouldMeanEndsPoliticalCultureEconomicMaterialsIndustryHigherBlessingIntellectualRealmsRuthlessDespotismSubsistence
Book:Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice
Create image

“All the great establishments, of every kind, now in the hands of a few proprietors, but employing a great number of wage laborers, would be broken up; for few or no persons, who could hire capital and do business for themselves would consent to labour for wages for another.”

KindPersonsHandsWould BeNumbersBrokenLabourEstablishmentConsentWagesLaborersBroken UpEmploying
Book:A Letter to Grover Cleveland on His False Inaugural Address, the Usurpation and Crimes of Lawmakers and Judges, and Consequent Poverty, Ignorance, and Servitude of the People
Create image

“It is self-evident that no number of men, by conspiring, and calling themselves a government, can acquire any rights whatever over other men, or other men's property, which they had not before, as individuals. And whenever any number of men, calling themselves a government, do anything to another man, or to his property, which they had no right to do as individuals, they thereby declare themselves trespassers, robbers, or murderers, according to the nature of their acts.”

MenSelfGovernmentIndividualNumbersRightsCallingPropertyAcquireEvidentMurdererAnother ManRobbersConspiring
Author:Lysander Spooner
Create image

“And the men who loan money to governments, so called, for the purpose of enabling the latter to rob, enslave, and murder their people, are among the greatest villains that the world has ever seen. And they as much deserve to be hunted and killed (if they cannot otherwise be got rid of) as any slave traders, robbers, or pirates that ever lived.”

PeopleIfsMenWorldGovernmentPurposeHe ManDeserveMurderSlaveLatterVillainLoanPirateEnablingRobbersTradersHuntedSlave Trade
Book:No Treason and a Letter to Thomas F. Bayard
Create image

“The Rothschilds, and that class of money-lenders of whom they are the representatives and agents - men who never think of lending a shilling to their next-door neighbors, for purposes of honest industry, unless upon the most ample security, and at the highest rate of interest - stand ready, at all times, to lend money in unlimited amounts to those robbers and murderers, who call themselves governments, to be expended in shooting down those who do not submit quietly to being robbed and enslaved.”

ThinkingMenGovernmentPurposeNextInterestClassDoorsHonestSecurityReadyIndustryAmountHighestRateNeighborTyrannyAll TimeAgentsShootingSubmitRepresentativesUnlimitedMurdererLendingRobbersLendersNext Door NeighborsMoney Lenders
Book:No Treason
Create image

“Our constitutions purport to be established by 'the people,' and, in theory, 'all the people' consent to such government as the constitutions authorize. But this consent of 'the people' exists only in theory. It has no existence in fact. Government is in reality established by the few; and these few assume the consent of all the rest, without any such consent being actually given.”

PeopleFactsRealityGovernmentGivenExistenceTheoryConstitutionAssumingPropagandaConsent
Book:The unconstitutionality of slavery: including parts first and second
Create image

“The principle that the majority have a right to rule the minority, practically resolves all government into a mere contest between two bodies of men, as to which of them shall be masters, and which of them slaves; a contest, that-however bloody-can, in the nature of things, never be finally closed, so long as man refuses to be a slave.”

MenLongTwoBodyGovernmentPrinciplesMastersMajoritySlaveMereRefuseMinoritiesResolveBloodyContestsAnarchistBe A Slave
Book:No Treason: No. 1-
Create image