QuoteProject
They [anarchists] spring from a single seed, no matter the flowering of their ideas. The seed is liberty. And that is all it is. It is not a socialist seed. It is not a capitalist seed. It is not a mystical seed. It is not a determinist seed. It is simply a statement. We can be free. After that it’s all choice and chance.
Karl Hess
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote emphasizes that the core of anarchism is the concept of freedom, independent of other ideological frameworks.

In this quote, Karl Hess argues that anarchists are united by a fundamental belief in liberty, which he describes as the 'seed' from which their ideas grow. He asserts that this seed is not tied to socialism, capitalism, or any other ideology, but rather serves as a straightforward declaration of the human capacity for freedom. After establishing this idea, he implies that the choices individuals make and the outcomes that follow are based on personal decisions and random events.

Themes

LibertyFreedomAnarchismChoiceChance

In practice

Example use cases

In a discussion about political ideologies, you might quote Hess to emphasize the importance of individual liberty.

More from Karl Hess

It is curious to note that when for reasons of conscience, people refuse to kill, they are often exempted from active military duty. But there are no exemptions for people who, for reasons of conscience, refuse to financially support the bureaucracy that actually does the killing. Apparently, the state takes money more seriously than life.
Karl HessRead
We have the illusion of freedom only because so few ever try to exercise it. Try it sometime. Try to save your home from the highway crowd, or to work a trade without the approval of the goons, or to open a little business without a permit, or to grow a crop without a quota, or to educate your child the way you want to, or to not have a child. We all have the freedom of a balloon floating in a pin factory.
Karl HessRead
The revolution occurs when the victims cease to cooperate.
Karl HessRead

Similar quotes

History can show you that it was one pile of bad stuff after another. It can also show you that there's been tremendous progress in knowledge, behaviour, laws, civilisation. It cannot show you that there was a meaning behind it.
Tony JudtRead
Of course you can have an opinion about Islam without having read Qur'an. You don't have to read Mein Kampf to have an opinion about Nazism.
Richard DawkinsRead
America is the only nation in the world that is founded on creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence; perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also theoretical politics and also great literature.
Gilbert K. ChestertonRead
The news isn't there to tell you what happened. It's there to tell you what it wants you to hear or what it thinks you want to hear.
Joss WhedonRead
It is not that the girl is unfit for everything, it is that she is not of this world.
Gabriel Garcia MarquezRead
Only what we have wrought into our character during life can we take with us.
Wilhelm Von HumboldtRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.