Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Quotes
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was a French political philosopher and the first thinker to call himself an anarchist. Born to a working-class family in Besancon, he educated himself by night while working as a compositor in a printing shop. The quotes below are attributed to Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, organized by topic.
Browse Pierre-Joseph Proudhon by topic
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon on Death
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“The end of the old civilization has come; the face of the earth will be renewed under a new son. Let the present generation perish, let the old prevaricators die in the desert! The holy earth will not cover their bones.”
What is Property?(1840) | Ch.V
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon on Freedom
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Attributed to Pierre-Joseph Proudhon:
“Liberty is the mother, not the daughter, of order.”
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“Money, money, always money — that is the essence of democracy . Democracy is more expensive than monarchy; it is incompatible with liberty.”
Solution Du Problême Social , quoted by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn in The Menace of the Herd (1943), p. 328 -
“I stand ready to negotiate, but I want no part of laws: I acknowledge none; I protest against every order with which some authority may feel pleased on the basis of some alleged necessity to over-rule my free will. Laws: We know what they are, and what they are worth! They are spider webs for the rich and mighty, steel chains for the poor and weak, fishing nets in the hands of government .”
As quoted in "The Authority Principle" in No Gods, No Masters : An Anthology of Anarchism (1980) Daniel Guérin, as translated by Paul Sharkey (1998), p. 90
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon on Justice
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“Justice is not the work of the law: on the contrary, the law is only the declaration and application of what is just in all circumstances where men have relations with one another.”
What is Property?(1840) | Chapter One -
“AXIOM. — Property is the Right of Increase claimed by the Proprietor over any thing which he has stamped as his own.”
What is Property?(1840) | Ch. IV -
“I build no system . I ask an end to privilege , the abolition of slavery , equality of rights , and the reign of law . Justice , nothing else; that is the alpha and omega of my argument: to others I leave the business of governing the world.”
What is Property?(1840) | Ch. I: "Method Pursued in this Work. The Idea of a Revolution" -
“The elements of justice are identical with those of algebra.”
What is Property?(1840) | Ch. IV -
“As man seeks justice in equality , so society seeks order in anarchy .”
What is Property?(1840) | Ch. V, Part 2; this might be the ultimate inspiration of the later slogan coined in 1848 by Anselme Bellegarrigue (and often attributed to Proudhon): " Anarchy is order, government is civil war. " -
“Justice is the product of nature and labour”
What is Property?(1840) | Ch. V
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon on Knowledge
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“La République est l'organisation par laquelle toutes les opinions, toutes les activités demeurant libres, le Peuple, par la divergence même des opinions et des volontés, pense et agit comme un seul homme. Dans la République, tout citoyen, en faisant ce qu'il veut et rien que ce qu'il veut, participe directement à la législation et au gouvernement, comme il participe à la production et à la circula”
Idée générale de la revolution au XIXe siècle (1851), p. 235, as cited in Anarchism (1908) by Paul Eltzbacher, p. 76 -
“To be governed is to be watched over, inspected, spied on, directed, legislated at, regulated, docketed, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, assessed, weighed, censored, ordered about, by men who have neither the right , nor the knowledge , nor the virtue . ... To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction, noted, registered, enrolled, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, ass”
Idée Générale de la Révolution au XIXe Siècle [ The General Idea of the Revolution ] (1851); quoted in The Anarchists (1964) by James Joll, Ch. 3, p. 78 -
“Du principe Fédératif [ Principle of Federation ] (1863)”
All my economic ideas as developed over twenty-five years can be summed up in the words: agricultural-industrial federation. All my political ideas boil down to a similar formula: political federation or decentralization. -
“Sociability is the attraction felt by sentient beings for each other; justice is the same attraction, accompanied by reflection and knowledge.”
What is Property?(1840) | Ch.V -
“I should like to restore with one hand what I destroy with the other. When pruning an old tree one should avoid destroying the buds and fruit ; you know this is as well as anyone.”
What is Property?(1840) | Preface -
“I have found more peace in the knowledge of truth than anger in the feeling of oppression, and the most precious fruit that I could want to collect in this memoir would be to inspire my readers with that peace of mind arising from the clear perception of evil and its causes.”
What is Property?(1840) | Preface
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon on Nature
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“If we pass from physical nature to the moral world, here we still find ourselves subject to the same deceptions of appearance, to the same influence of spontaneity and habit.”
What is Property?(1840) | Chapter One
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon on Politics
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“Property is theft.”
Property is robbery! That is the war-cry of '93! That is the signal of revolutions ! Reader, calm yourself: I am no agent of discord, no firebrand of sedition . I anticipate history by a few days; I disclose a truth whose development we may try in vain to arrest; I write the preamble of our future constitution . This proposition which seems to you blasphemous — property is robbery — would, if our -
Attributed to Pierre-Joseph Proudhon:
“What is government? It is the perpetual state of war between the strong and the weak.”
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“Anarchy is order; government is civil war.”
As man seeks justice in equality , so society seeks order in anarchy . -
Attributed to Pierre-Joseph Proudhon:
“To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled.”
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“All my economic ideas as developed over twenty-five years can be summed up in the words: agricultural-industrial federation. All my political ideas boil down to a similar formula: political federation or decentralization.”
Du principe Fédératif [ Principle of Federation ] (1863) -
“All parties without exception, when they seek for power , are varieties of absolutism .”
As quoted in Philosophy at Work : A Constructive Approach to Philosophy (1960) by Ralph Bubrich Winn -
“What is conscription? An act of property exercised over families by the government without warning, a robbery of men and money.”
What is Property?(1840) | Ch. IV -
“Ch. V, Part 2; this might be the ultimate inspiration of the later slogan coined in 1848 by Anselme Bellegarrigue (and often attributed to Proudhon): " Anarchy is order, government is civil war. "”
What is Property?(1840)