Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Quotes on Justice

Quotes

• “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.”

• “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

• “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

• “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