Peter Kropotkin Quotes on Knowledge
Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin was a Russian geographer, naturalist, and anarchist philosopher and one of the founders of anarcho-communism. This page collects quotes attributed to Peter Kropotkin on the topic of knowledge, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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“Speech (26 September 1891); as quoted in Peter Kropotkin : From Prince to Rebel (1990) by George Woodcock and Ivan Avakumovic, p. 269”
America is just the country that shows how all the written guarantees in the world for freedom are no protection against tyranny and oppression of the worst kind. There the politician has come to be looked upon as the very scum of society. The peoples of the world are becoming profoundly dissatisfied and are not appeased by the promise of the social-democrats to patch up the State into a new engin -
“Kropotkin's entry on "Anarchism" in the Encyclopædia Britannica (1910)”
ANARCHISM (from the Gr. ἅν , and άρχη , 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 sa -
“Anarchism" article in Encyclopedia Britannica (1910) "The Historical Development of Anarchism", as quoted in Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings (1927), p. 288”
The best exponent of anarchist philosophy in ancient Greece was Zeno (342-267 or 270 B.C.), from Crete , the founder of the Stoic philosophy, who distinctly opposed his conception of a free community without government to the state-Utopia of Plato . He repudiated the omnipotence of the State, its intervention and regimentation, and proclaimed the sovereignty of the moral law of the individual — re -
“Letter to Vladimir Lenin (21 December 1920); as quoted in Peter Kropotkin : From Prince to Rebel (1990) by George Woodcock and Ivan Avakumovic, p. 426”
Vladimir Ilyich, your concrete actions are completely unworthy of the ideas you pretend to hold. Is it possible that you do not know what a hostage really is — a man imprisoned not because of a crime he has committed, but only because it suits his enemies to exert blackmail on his companions? … If you admit such methods, one can foresee that one day you will use torture, as was done in the Middle -
“You know how I always believe in the future … Without disorder, the revolution is impossible; knowing that, I did not lose hope, and I do not lose it now.”
Letter to a friend (November 1920), as quoted in Peter Kropotkin : From Prince to Rebel (1990) by George Woodcock and Ivan Avakumovic, p. 428