Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Communism is inequality, but not as property is. Property is exploitation of the weak by the strong. Communism is exploitation of the strong by the weak.

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.

All men in their hearts, I say, bear witness to these truths; they need only to be made to understand it.

A common danger tends to concord. Communism is the exploitation of the strong by the weak. In Communism, inequality comes from placing mediocrity on a level with excellence.

To name a thing is easy: the difficulty is to discern it before its appearance.

As man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in anarchy.

The possessions of the rich are stolen property.

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.

By no means. I have just given you my serious and well-considered profession of faith. Although a firm friend of order, I am (in the full force of the term) an anarchist. Listen to me.

To be governed ... is to be watched, inspected, directed, indoctrinated, numbered, estimated, regulated, commanded, controlled, law-driven, preached at, spied upon, censured, checked, valued, enrolled - by creatures who have neither the right, nor the wisdom, nor the virtue to do so.

In any given society the authority of man over man runs in inverse proportion to the intellectual development of that society.