Mikhail Bakunin Quotes

By striving to do the impossible, man has always achieved what is possible. Those who have cautiously done no more than they believed possible have never taken a single step forward.
Mikhail Bakunin

Forward, Single, Done

A Boss in Heaven is the best excuse for a boss on earth, therefore If God did exist, he would have to be abolished.
Mikhail Bakunin

God, Best, Earth

From the naturalistic point of view, all men are equal. There are only two exceptions to this rule of naturalistic equality: geniuses and idiots.
Mikhail Bakunin

Men, Equality, Two

This contradiction lies here: they wish God, and they wish humanity. They persist in connecting two terms which, once separated, can come together again only to destroy each other.
Mikhail Bakunin

God, Humanity, Together

I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation.
Mikhail Bakunin

Women, Men, Freedom

People go to church for the same reasons they go to a tavern: to stupefy themselves, to forget their misery, to imagine themselves, for a few minutes anyway, free and happy.
Mikhail Bakunin

Happy, Forget, Same

If there is a State, then there is domination, and in turn, there is slavery.
Mikhail Bakunin

State, Turn, Slavery

Powerful states can maintain themselves only by crime, little states are virtuous only by weakness.
Mikhail Bakunin

Powerful, Themselves, Crime

The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth.
Mikhail Bakunin

God, Long, Against

Everything will pass, and the world will perish but the Ninth Symphony will remain.
Mikhail Bakunin

Everything, Remain, Pass

Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does good not because he is forced to do so, but because he freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it.
Mikhail Bakunin

Good, Freedom, Human

Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie; and the workers want no lying.
Mikhail Bakunin

Freedom, Equality, Political

To revolt is a natural tendency of life. Even a worm turns against the foot that crushes it. In general, the vitality and relative dignity of an animal can be measured by the intensity of its instinct to revolt.
Mikhail Bakunin

Life, Against, Natural

A jealous lover of human liberty, deeming it the absolute condition of all that we admire and respect in humanity, I reverse the phrase of Voltaire, and say that, if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him.
Mikhail Bakunin

God, Respect, Human

But I recognize no infallible authority, even in special questions; consequently, whatever respect I may have for the honesty and the sincerity of such or such an individual, I have no absolute faith in any person.
Mikhail Bakunin

Faith, Respect, Person

Where the state begins, individual liberty ceases, and vice versa.
Mikhail Bakunin

Liberty, State, Individual

Anyone who makes plans for after the revolution is a reactionary.
Mikhail Bakunin

Revolution, After, Makes

I am sure that, on the one hand, the Rothschilds appreciate the merits of Marx, and that on the other hand, Marx feels an instinctive inclination and a great respect for the Rothschilds.
Mikhail Bakunin

Great, Respect, Sure

Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.
Mikhail Bakunin

Politics, Thought, Idealism

The liberty of man consists solely in this, that he obeys the laws of nature because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been imposed upon him externally by any foreign will whatsoever, human or divine, collective or individual.
Mikhail Bakunin

Nature, Human, Him

Therefore, if God existed, only in one way could he serve human liberty - by ceasing to exist.
Mikhail Bakunin

God, Human, Liberty

From each according to his faculties; to each according to his needs.
Mikhail Bakunin

Needs, According, Faculties

To my utter despair I have discovered, and discover every day anew, that there is in the masses no revolutionary idea or hope or passion.
Mikhail Bakunin

Hope, Passion, Idea

Does it follow that I reject all authority? Perish the thought. In the matter of boots, I defer to the authority of the boot-maker.
Mikhail Bakunin

Thought, Matter, Follow

Even the most wretched individual of our present society could not exist and develop without the cumulative social efforts of countless generations.
Mikhail Bakunin

Society, Social, Individual

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Biography

Nationality: Russian

Type: Revolutionary

Born: May 30, 1814

Died: June 13, 1876

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