Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin

Everything that the spy had told in this report was correct--but the way he had told it!

I absolutely refused to have anything to do with the paper.

Burning, assassination, dynamite bombs--there was nothing but that in it.

But how many tragedies--terrible tragedies--we owe to these villains!

The release of the anarchists thus became a war-cry against the government, and in the autumn of 1885 all my comrades save three were set at liberty by a decree of President Grévy.

In the whole of the ethnological literature there are not many works imbued to the same extent with a thorough and sympathetic understanding of the true nature of primitive man.

Louise Michel lectured every night, and aroused the enthusiasm of her audiences, whether they consisted of working men or were made up of middle-class people.

The socialist movement was in full swing, and life in London was no more the dull, vegetating existence that it had been for me four years before.

Science is greatly in need, from time to time, of such scientific speculations of a higher standard, made by a scrupulously laborious, critical, and at the same time, imaginative mind.

An acute industrial crisis prevailed that year in most trades, and every morning, and often all the day long, I heard groups of workers going about in the streets singing ‘We’ve got no work to do,’ or some hymn, and begging for bread.

People flocked at night into Trafalgar Square to sleep there in the open air, under the wind and rain, between two newspapers; and one day in February a crowd, after having listened to the speeches of Burns, Hyndman, and Champion, rushed…

Far more important, however, than this outbreak of discontent, was the spirit which prevailed amongst the poorer portion of the working population in the outskirts of London.

The amount of interest in socialism and all sorts of schemes of reform and reconstruction of society was very great in all layers of society.

Or, ‘We don’t like the idea of state management of railways, and the present management by private companies is organized robbery.

But suppose the workers owned all the railways.

I took a lively part in this movement, and with a few English comrades we started, in addition to the three socialist papers already in existence, an anarchist-communist monthly, ‘Freedom,’ which continues to live up to the present day.

Most socialists had hitherto said that in our present civilized societies we actually produce much more than is necessary for guaranteeing full well-being to all.

It is only the distribution which is defective; and if a social revolution took place, nothing more would be required than for everyone to return to his factory or workshop, Society taking possession for itself of the ‘surplus value’ or…

None of these are produced in greater quantities than would be required to secure well-being for all; and the over-production, so often spoken of, means nothing but that the masses are too poor to buy even what is now considered as…

But in all civilized countries the production, both agricultural and industrial, ought to and easily might be immensely increased so as to secure a reign of plenty for all.

Already during my stay at Clairvaux I saw the necessity of completely revising the formula itself of ‘struggle for existence’ in the animal world, and its applications to human affairs.

However, I found that the comprehension of ‘struggle for life’ in the sense of a war-cry of ‘Woe to the weak,’ raised to the height of a commandment of nature revealed by science, was so deeply inrooted in this country that it had become…

I will take plenty of exercise, practise gymnastics, and not let myself be broken down by my surroundings.

From early youth he had longed to go abroad, where men think as they like, read what they like, and openly express their thoughts.

Veracity--absolute veracity--and the most open-hearted frankness were the dominating features of his character; he could not bear deceit or even conceit in any form.