Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin

But the absence of a division between the leaders and the masses in the Jura Federation was also the reason why there was not a question upon which every member of the federation would not strive to form his own independent opinion.

To confuse Nihilism with terrorism is as wrong as to confuse a philosophical movement like Stoicism or Positivism with a political movement, such as, for example, republicanism.

It is Nihilism, divested of some of its rougher aspects--which were unavoidable in a young movement of that sort--which gives now to the life of a great portion of the educated classes of Russia a certain peculiar character which we…

He saw them wildly talking as idealist sentimentalists, and at the same time acting as real barbarians toward their wives, their children, and their serfs; and he rose in revolt against that sort of sentimentalism, which, after all, so…

The Nihilist carried his love of sincerity even into the minutest details of everyday life.

This was not an organized movement: it was one of those mass movements which occur at certain periods of sudden awakening of human conscience.

It is certainly true that our youth listened to the mighty voice of Bakúnin, and that the agitation of the International Workingmen’s Association had a fascinating effect upon us.

But we saw no possible ground, legal or semi-legal, for such a struggle.

A movement similar to that of the Lollards is rapidly growing now amongst the Russian peasants.

I will bring them together and unite them, if possible, into a sort of organization; and then, some day, there is sure to be an opportunity to direct all these forces toward compelling Alexander II. to give Russia a constitution.

I should have gone in a direction which was not the one dictated by my own nature, and I should not have found in it the personal happiness which I have found in other paths.

When one has talent, everything contributes to its development.

They asked me questions, all to the point, about the minute details of the working-men’s unions, the aims of the International Association and its chances of success, and then came questions about what could be done in Russia, and the…

And when, afterward, several of them were arrested, they nearly all behaved bravely, sheltering us and betraying no one.

To-morrow he has to pass an examination, and you will spoil forever the scientific career of a young man who has gone through great hardships, and has struggled for years against all sorts of obstacles, to attain his present position.

The absence of free speech in Russia, the Russian readiness to submit to oppression, the veiled words to which our writers resort, were utterly repulsive to his frank and open nature.

I would have consented to live on nothing but bread and water, in the dampest of cellars, if only permitted to work.

Life suddenly ceased to have any meaning for me.

You have received little education, and you hardly understand what you are doing.

Yet I could not say ‘No’: it would have been a lie.

As to the prison doctor, who did not want to hear the word ‘scurvy’ pronounced ‘in his prison,’ the less said of him the better.

After the two years I had spent in a gloomy casemate, every fibre of my inner self seemed to be throbbing with life, and eager to enjoy the full intensity of life.

The socialist ideal of this party gradually lost the character of something that had to be worked out by the labour organizations themselves, and became state management of the industries--in fact, state socialism; that is, state…

Gradually, all the life and activity of the German social democratic party was subordinated to electoral considerations.

And the division and subdivision--the permanent subdivision--of functions has been pushed so far as to divide humanity into castes which are almost as firmly established as those of old India.