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Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

38 quotes

“Money, money, always money — that is the essence of democracy. Democracy is more expensive than monarchy; it is incompatible with liberty.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Solution Du Problême Social, quoted by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn in The Menace of the Herd (1943), p. 328
“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.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) first seen 1863 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Du principe Fédératif [Principle of Federation] (1863)
“All parties without exception, when they seek for power, are varieties of absolutism.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Philosophy at Work : A Constructive Approach to Philosophy (1960) by Ralph Bubrich Winn
“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.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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
“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.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The nineteenth century is in my eyes a creative age in which new principles are produced but in which nothing written will endure.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All that the sovereign people, legislators, and reformers see in public office is, to speak plainly, their own benefit.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Property is impossible.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The elements of justice are identical with those of algebra.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“AXIOM. — Property is the Right of Increase claimed by the Proprietor over any thing which he has stamped as his own.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The proprietor, producing neither by his own labor nor by his implement, and receiving products in exchange for nothing, is either a parasite or a thief.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What is conscription? An act of property exercised over families by the government without warning, a robbery of men and money.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Talents is a creation of society rather than a gift of nature; it is an accumulated capital of which the recipient is only the guardian. Without society, without education and powerful assistance which it gives, the finest nature would be inferior to the most ordinary capacities even in the rare as where it ought to shine.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sociability is the attraction felt by sentient beings for each other; justice is the same attraction, accompanied by reflection and knowledge.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Justice is the product of nature and labour”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If God should descend to earth and come to live among us, we could not love him unless he became like us or give him anything unless he produced something or listen to him unless he proved us mistaken or worship him unless he manifested his power. All the laws of our nature, affective, economic, and intellectual, would prevent us from treating him as we treat other men, that is, according to reason, justice, and equity. From this I infer that if God ever put himself into immediate communication with man, he would have to become a man.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in anarchy.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) first seen 1848 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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.
“Up to now the victories of justice over injustice and of equality over inequality have been won by instinct and the simple force of things, but the final triumph of our social nature will be due to our reason, or else we shall fall back into feudal chaos. Either this is reserved for our intelligence, or this depth of poverty for our indignity.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tormented by conflicting feelings, I appealed to reason; and it is reason which, amid so many dogmatic contradictions, now forces the hypothesis upon me. A priori dogmatism, applying itself to God, has proved fruitless: who knows whither the hypothesis, in its turn, will lead us? I will explain therefore how, studying in the silence of my heart, and far from every human consideration, the mystery of social revolutions, God, the great unknown, has become for me an hypothesis, — I mean a necessary dialectical tool.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 circulation de la richesse. Là tout citoyen est roi ; car il a la plénitude du pouvoir, il règne et gouverne. La République est une anarchie positive. Ce n'est ni la liberté soumise A l'ordre comme dans la monarchie constitutionnelle, ni la liberté emprisonnée DANs l'ordre, comme l'entend le Gouvernement provisoire. C'est la liberté délivrée de toutes ses entraves, la superstition, le préjugé, le sophisme, l'agiotage, l'autorité; c'est la liberté réciproque, et non pas la liberté qui se limite; la liberté non pas fille de l'ordre, mais MÈRE de l'ordre.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) first seen 1851 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under the pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, trained, ransomed, exploited, monopolized, extorted, squeezed, mystified, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, despised, harassed, tracked, abused, clubbed, disarmed, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and, to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, outraged, dishonoured. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) first seen 1851 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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
“If I were asked to answer the following question: What is slavery? and I should answer in one word, It is murder, my meaning would be understood at once. No extended argument would be required to show that the power to take from a man his thought, his will, his personality, is a power of life and death; and that to enslave a man is to kill him. Why, then, to this other question: What is property! may I not likewise answer, It is robbery, without the certainty of being misunderstood; the second proposition being no other than a transformation of the first? I undertake to discuss the vital principle of our government and our institutions, property: I am in my right. I may be mistaken in the conclusion which shall result from my investigations: I am in my right. I think best to place the last thought of my book first: still am I in my right.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 prejudices allowed us to consider it, be recognized as the lightning-rod to shield us from the coming thunderbolt; but too many interests stand in the way! ... Alas! philosophy will not change the course of events: destiny will fulfill itself regardless of prophecy. Besides, must not justice be done and our education be finished?”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) first seen 1619 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Property is theft! is a more famous translation of the original: La propriété, c'est le vol! Compare the summarised dictum of the English Ranter, Abiezer Coppe (1619-1672): "Coppe expressed the same hatred of possession…
“Of what consequence to you, reader, is my obscure individuality? I live, like you, in a century in which reason submits only to fact and to evidence. My name, like yours, is truth-seeker. My mission is written in these words of the law: Speak without hatred and without fear; tell that which thou knowest! The work of our race is to build the temple of science, and this science includes man and Nature. Now, truth reveals itself to all; to-day to Newton and Pascal, tomorrow to the herdsman in the valley and the journeyman in the shop. Each one contributes his stone to the edifice; and, his task accomplished, disappears. Eternity precedes us, eternity follows us: between two infinites, of what account is one poor mortal that the century should inquire about him? Disregard then, reader, my title and my character, and attend only to my arguments.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have made every effort to obtain exact information, comparing doctrines, replying to objections, continually constructing equations and reductions from arguments, and weighing thousands of syllogisms in the scales of the most rigorous logic. In this laborious work, I have collected many interesting facts which I shall share with my friends and the public as soon as I have leisure. But I must say that I recognized at once that we had never understood the meaning of these words, so common and yet so sacred: Justice, equity, liberty; that concerning each of these principles our ideas have been utterly obscure; and, in fact, that this ignorance was the sole cause, both of the poverty that devours us, and of all the calamities that have ever afflicted the human race.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To name a thing is easy: the difficulty is to discern it before its appearance. In giving expression to the last stage of an idea, — an idea which permeates all minds, which to-morrow will be proclaimed by another if I fail to announce it to-day, — I can claim no merit save that of priority of utterance. Do we eulogize the man who first perceives the dawn? Yes: all men believe and repeat that equality of conditions is identical with equality of rights; that property and robbery are synonymous terms; that every social advantage accorded, or rather usurped, in the name of superior talent or service, is iniquity and extortion. All men in their hearts, I say, bear witness to these truths; they need only to be made to understand it.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The purchaser draws boundaries, fences himself in, and says, “This is mine; each one by himself, each one for himself.” Here, then, is a piece of land upon which, henceforth, no one has a right to step, save the proprietor and his friends; which can benefit nobody, save the proprietor and his servants. Let these sales multiply, and soon the people — who have been neither able nor willing to sell, and who have received none of the proceeds of the sale — will have nowhere to rest, no place of shelter, no ground to till. They will die of hunger at the proprietor's door, on the edge of that property which was their birthright; and the proprietor, watching them die, will exclaim, “So perish idlers and vagrants!”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Friendship is precious in the hearts of the children of men. Generosity, gratitude (I mean here only that gratitude which is born of admiration of a superior power), and friendship are three three distinct shades of a single sentiment which I will call "equity" or "social proportionality. Equity does not change justice; but always taking equity as the base, it adds to it esteem and thereby forms in man a third degree of sociability. Equality makes it at once our duty and our pleasure to aid the weak who need us and to make them our equals; to pay to the strong a just tribute of gratitude and honour without making ourselves slaves to them; to cherish our neighbors, friends, and equals for what we receive from them, even by right of exchange. Equity is sociability raised to this ideal through reason and justice; its most usual manifestation is urbanity or politeness, which among certain nations sums up in a single word almost all the social duties.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Communism is inequality, but not as property is. Property is the exploitation of the weak by the strong. Communism is the exploitation of the strong by the weak. In property, inequality of conditions is the result of force, under whatever name it be disguised: physical and mental force; force of events, chance, fortune; force of accumulated property, &c. In communism, inequality springs from placing mediocrity on a level with excellence. This damaging equation is repellent to the conscience, and causes merit to complain; for, although it may be the duty of the strong to aid the weak, they prefer to do it out of generosity, — they never will endure a comparison. Give them equal opportunities of labor, and equal wages, but never allow their jealousy to be awakened by mutual suspicion of unfaithfulness in the performance of the common task. Communism is oppression and slavery. Man is very willing to obey the law of duty, serve his country, and oblige his friends; but he wishes to labor when he pleases, where he pleases, and as much as he pleases. He wishes to dispose of his own time, to be governed only by necessity, to choose his friendships, his recreation, and his discipline; to act from judgment, not by command; to sacrifice himself through selfishness, not through servile obligation. Communism is essentially opposed to the free exercise of our faculties, to our noblest desires, to our deepest feelings. Any plan which could be devised for reconciling it with the demands of the individual reason and will would end only in changing the thing while preserving the name. Now, if we are honest truth-seekers, we shall avoid disputes about words. Thus, communism violates the sovereignty of the conscience, and equality: the first, by restricting spontaneity of mind and heart, and freedom of thought and action; the second, by placing labor and laziness, skill and stupidity, and even vice and virtue on an equality in point of comfort. For the rest, if property is impossible on account of the desire to accumulate, communism would soon become so through the desire to shirk.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Before entering upon the subject-matter of these new memoirs, I must explain an hypothesis which will undoubtedly seem strange, but in the absence of which it is impossible for me to proceed intelligibly: I mean the hypothesis of a God. To suppose God, it will be said, is to deny him. Why do you not affirm him? Is it my fault if belief in Divinity has become a suspected opinion; if the bare suspicion of a Supreme Being is already noted as evidence of a weak mind; and if, of all philosophical Utopias, this is the only one which the world no longer tolerates? Is it my fault if hypocrisy and imbecility everywhere hide behind this holy formula?”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In order better to grasp the thought of Malthus, let us translate it into philosophical propositions by stripping it of its rhetorical gloss: — "'"Individual liberty, and property, which is its expression, are economical data; equality and solidarity are not." "Under this system, each one by himself, each one for himself: labor, like all merchandise, is subject to fluctuation: hence the risks of the proletariat." "Whoever has neither income nor wages has no right to demand anything of others: his misfortune falls on his own head; in the game of fortune, luck has been against him." From the point of view of political economy these propositions are irrefutable; and Malthus, who has formulated them with such alarming exactness, is secure against all reproach. From the point of view of the conditions of social science, these same propositions are radically false, and even contradictory.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Power, instrument of the collective force, created in society to serve as mediator between capital and labor, has become inescapably enchained to capital and directed against the proletariat. No political reform can resolve this contradiction, since, according to the avowal of politicians themselves, such a reform could only end by giving more energy and expansion to power, and until it had overthrown the hierarchy and dissolved society, power would not be able to attack the prerogatives of monopoly. The problem consists, then, for the working classes, not in capturing, but in defeating both power and monopoly, which would mean to make rise from the bowels of the people, from the depths of labor, a power greater, an action more powerful which would envelop capital and the State and subjugate them.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is necessary to have lived in this insulator which is called the national assembly, in order to perceive how the men who are the most completely ignorant of the state of the country are almost always the ones who represent it. I set myself to read everything that the distribution bureau sends the representatives: proposals, reports, brochures, even the Moniteur and the Bulletin of the laws. The greater part of my colleagues of the left and the extreme left were in the same perplexity of spirit, in the same ignorance of the daily facts. The national workshops were spoken of only with a kind of fright; for fear of the people is the defect of all those who belong to authority; the people, as concerns power, is the enemy.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) said by 1865 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source