A jealous lover of human liberty, deeming it the absolute condition of all that we admire and respect in humanity, I reverse the phrase of Voltaire, and say that, if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him.
- Mikhail Bakunin Quote

Anyone who makes plans for after the revolution is a reactionary.
- Mikhail Bakunin Quote

But I recognize no infallible authority, even in special questions; consequently, whatever respect I may have for the honesty and the sincerity of such or such an individual, I have no absolute faith in any person.
- Mikhail Bakunin Quote

By striving to do the impossible, man has always achieved what is possible. Those who have cautiously done no more than they believed possible have never taken a single step forward.
- Mikhail Bakunin Quote

Even the most wretched individual of our present society could not exist and develop without the cumulative social efforts of countless generations.
- Mikhail Bakunin Quote

Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does good not because he is forced to do so, but because he freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it.
- Mikhail Bakunin Quote

From the naturalistic point of view, all men are equal. There are only two exceptions to this rule of naturalistic equality: geniuses and idiots.
- Mikhail Bakunin Quote

He who desires to worship God must harbor no childish illusions about the matter but bravely renounce his liberty and humanity.
- Mikhail Bakunin Quote

I am sure that, on the one hand, the Rothschilds appreciate the merits of Marx, and that on the other hand, Marx feels an instinctive inclination and a great respect for the Rothschilds.
- Mikhail Bakunin Quote

I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation.
- Mikhail Bakunin Quote

I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure.
- Mikhail Bakunin Quote

Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.
- Mikhail Bakunin Quote

Look at Christ, my dear friend: His life was divine through and through, full of self-denial, and He did everything for mankind, finding His satisfaction and His delight in the dissolution of His material being.
- Mikhail Bakunin Quote

Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie; and the workers want no lying.
- Mikhail Bakunin Quote

Powerful states can maintain themselves only by crime, little states are virtuous only by weakness.
- Mikhail Bakunin Quote

The communism of Marx seeks a strong state centralization, and where this exists, there the parasitic Jewish nation - which speculates upon the labor of people - will always find the means for its existence.
- Mikhail Bakunin Quote

The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth.
- Mikhail Bakunin Quote

The freedom of all is essential to my freedom.
- Mikhail Bakunin Quote

The liberty of man consists solely in this, that he obeys the laws of nature because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been imposed upon him externally by any foreign will whatsoever, human or divine, collective or individual.
- Mikhail Bakunin Quote

The passion for destruction is also a creative passion.
- Mikhail Bakunin Quote

The privilege of ruling would be in the hands of the skilled and the learned, with a wide scope left for profitable crooked deals carried on by the Jews, who would be attracted by the enormous extension of the international speculations of the national banks.
- Mikhail Bakunin Quote

Thence results, for science as well as for industry, the necessity of the division and association of labor. I receive and I give - such is human life. Each directs and is directed in his turn.
- Mikhail Bakunin Quote

This contradiction lies here: they wish God, and they wish humanity. They persist in connecting two terms which, once separated, can come together again only to destroy each other.
- Mikhail Bakunin Quote

To my utter despair I have discovered, and discover every day anew, that there is in the masses no revolutionary idea or hope or passion.
- Mikhail Bakunin Quote

To revolt is a natural tendency of life. Even a worm turns against the foot that crushes it. In general, the vitality and relative dignity of an animal can be measured by the intensity of its instinct to revolt.
- Mikhail Bakunin Quote