The law has no claim to human respect. It has no civilizing mission; its only purpose is to protect exploitation.
Peter KropotkinRead
No evolution is accomplished in nature without revolution. Periods of very slow changes are succeeded by periods of violent changes. Revolutions are as necessary for evolution as the slow changes which prepare them and succeed them.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Evolution involves both gradual progress and sudden, radical shifts necessary for growth.
Peter Kropotkin’s quote emphasizes that evolution in nature is not a linear process; rather, it is characterized by cycles of gradual changes followed by sudden revolutions. He argues that these revolutions are crucial for significant developmental leaps, indicating that both slow and rapid changes play integral roles in the broader process of evolution, both in nature and potentially in human societies.
Themes
EvolutionRevolutionChangeNatureGrowth
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about environmental changes and the necessity of abrupt actions to combat climate change.
More from Peter Kropotkin
All quotes →Have not prisons - which kill all will and force of character in man, which enclose within their walls more vices than are met with on any other spot of the globe - always been universities of crime?
Peter KropotkinRead
Man is appealed to be guided in his acts, not merely by love, which is always personal, or at best tribal, but by his perception of his oneness with each human being. In the practice of mutual aid, which we can re-trace to the earliest beginnings of evolution, we thus find the positive and undoubted origin of our ethical conceptions; and we can affirm that in the ethical progress of man, mutual support- not mutual struggle- has had the leading part.
Peter KropotkinRead
It is only by the abolition of the State, by the conquest of perfect liberty by the individual, by free agreement, association, and absolute free federation that we can reach Communism — the possession in common of our social inheritance, and the production in common of all riches.
Peter KropotkinRead
When we ask for the abolition of the State and its organs we are always told that we dream of a society composed of men better than they are in reality. But no; a thousand times, no. All we ask is that men should not be made worse than they are, by such institutions!
Peter KropotkinRead
Everywhere you will find that the wealth of the wealthy springs from the poverty of the poor.
Peter KropotkinRead
Similar quotes
Each situation has to be evaluated separately, for all are different. In general, I believe in non-violent direct action, which involve organizing large numbers of people, whereas too often violent uprisings are the product of a small group. If enough people are organized, violence can be minimized in bringing about social change.
Howard ZinnRead
The male clerk with his quill pen and copper-plate handwriting had gone for good. The female short-hand typist took his place. It was a decisive moment in women's emancipation.
A. J. P. TaylorRead
Those interested in perpetuating present conditions are always in tears about the marvelous past that is about to disappear, without having so much as a smile for the young future.
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Those who can't imagine change reveal the deficits of their imaginations, not the difficulty of change.
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A generation that has taken a beating is always followed by a generation that deals one.
Otto Von BismarckRead
When we heard about the hippies, the barely more than boys and girls who decided to try something different ... we laughed at them. We condemned them, our children, for seeking a different future. We hated them for their flowers, for their love, and for their unmistakable rejection of every hideous, mistaken compromise that we had made throughout our hollow, money-bitten, frightened, adult lives
June JordanRead