The Heretic's Handbook of Quotations: Cutting Comments on Burning Issues
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The Heretic's Handbook of Quotations: Cutting Comments on Burning Issues
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781884365980 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | See Sharp Press |
| Publication date: | 01/28/1992 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 238 |
| File size: | 9 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The Heretic's Handbook of Quotations
Cutting Comments on Burning Issues
By Charles Bufe
See Sharp Press
Copyright © 2001 Charles Q. BufeAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-884365-98-0
CHAPTER 1
Like a refreshing dip in an open sewer ...
Politics]
Lord Acton
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
— Letter to Mandell Creighton, April 5, 1887
The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern.
— Letter to Mary Gladstone, April 24, 1881
Gracie Allen
The President of today is just the postage stamp of tomorrow.
— attributed
Grant Allen
Individualism is only logically and consistently possible if it starts with the postulate that all men must, to begin with, have free and equal access to the common gifts of nature.
— quoted by Bool and Carlyle in For Liberty
Peter Arshinov
Proletarians of the world, look into the depths of your own beings, seek out the truth and realize it yourselves: you will find it nowhere else.
— quoted by Bool and Carlyle in For Liberty
Michael Bakunin
If society had never come into being, man would have remained a wild beast forever, or, what amounts to the same thing, a saint.
— God and the State
Until now all human history has been only a perpetual and bloody immolation of millions of poor human beings in honor of some pitiless abstraction — God, country, power of State, national honor, historical, judicial rights, political liberty, public welfare.
— Ibid.
I shall continue to be an impossible person so long as those who are now possible remain possible.
— Letter to Ogarov, June 14, 1868
The urge to destroy is also a creative urge.
— Reaction in Germany
Alexander Berkman
... so-called political "action" is, so far as the cause of the workers and of true progress is concerned, worse than inaction. The very essence of politics is corruption, sail-trimming, the sacrifice of your ideals and integrity for success. Bitter are the fruits of this "success" for the masses and for every decent man and woman the world over.
There is nothing more corrupting than compromise. One step in that direction calls for another, makes it necessary and compelling, and soon it swamps you with the force of a rolling snowball become a landslide.
Our present civilization has, by disinheriting millions, made the belly the center of the universe.
Capitalism robs you and makes a wage slave of you. The law upholds and protects that robbery. The government fools you into believing that you are independent and free. In this way you are fooled and duped every day of your life.
— above quotations from What Is Communist Anarchism?
Ambrose Bierce
ALLIANCE, In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.
ARENA, In politics, an imaginary rat-pit in which the statesman wrestles with his record.
CONSERVATIVE, A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.
CONSUL, In American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is given one by the Administration on condition that he leave the country.
IMPARTIAL, Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two conflicting opinions.
OPPOSITION, In politics the party that prevents the Government from running amuck by hamstringing it.
OUT-OF-DOORS, That part of one's environment upon which no government has been able to collect taxes.
PASSPORT, A document treacherously inflicted upon a citizen going abroad, exposing him as an alien and pointing him out for special reprobation and outrage.
POLITICS, A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
POLITICIAN, An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When he wriggles he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice. As compared with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being alive.
— above quotations from The Devil's Dictionary
William Blake
Prisons are built with stones of law, brothels with bricks of religion.
— Proverbs of Hell
Napoleon Bonaparte
A man like me cares nothing for the lives of millions.
— quoted by Rocker in Nationalism and Culture
Simon Cameron
An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.
— attributed
Lord Chesterfield
Let us consider that arbitrary power has seldom or never been introduced into any country at once. It must be introduced by slow degrees, and as it were step by step, lest the people see its approach.
— quoted by Bool and Carlyle in For Liberty
Winston Churchill
If I had been an Italian, I am sure I would have been with you [Mussolini] from the beginning to the end of your victorious struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism.
— quoted in Literary Digest, February 26, 1927
Your movement [fascism] has abroad rendered a service to the whole world ... Italy has shown that there is a way to combat subversive forces.
— Ibid.
Italy [under Mussolini] has demonstrated that the great mass of the people, when it is well led, appreciates and is ready to defend the honor and stability of civil society. It [fascism] provides the necessary antidote to the Russian virus. Henceforth no nation will be able to imagine that it is deprived of a last means of protection against malignant tumors, and every Socialist leader in each country ought to feel more confident in resisting rash and leveling doctrines.
— Ibid.
... a sheep in sheep's clothing
... a modest man with much to be modest about.
He occasionally stumbles over the truth, but he always hastily picks himself up and hurries on as if nothing had happened.
There but for the grace of god, goes god.
— barbs directed at political rivals
Alex Comfort
The factual history of power in society bears the same relationship to communal health as the works of de Sade bear to individual normality, save that it is real, not fantastic. Either it is true that humanity by intelligence and by the practice of mutual aid and direct action can reverse processes which appear socially inevitable, or humanity will become extinct by simple maladaptation ... the rejection of power is the first step in any such intelligent reversal.
— preface to Barbarism and Sexual Freedom
Glen A. Dahlquist
We are told by some that when a nation gets too democratic the man on horseback will soon appear. These people should know, for they invite him.
Eugene V. Debs
Too long have the workers of the world waited for some Moses to lead them out of bondage. He has not come; he never will come. I would not lead you out if I could; for if you could be led out, you could be led back again. I would have you make up your minds that there is nothing that you cannot do for yourselves.
— Speech, December 10, 1905
I am willing to be charged with almost anything, rather than to be charged with being a leader ... I would be ashamed to admit that I had risen from the ranks. When I rise it will be with the ranks, and not from the ranks.
— Speech, June 16, 1918
At Yoakum, Texas, a few days ago ... I passed four or five bearers of the white man's burden perched on a railing and decorating their environment with tobacco juice ... One glance was sufficient to satisfy me that they represented all there is of justification for the implacable hatred of the Negro race. They were ignorant, lazy, unclean, totally void of ambition, themselves the foul product of the capitalist system and held in lowest contempt by the master class, yet esteeming themselves immeasurably above the cleanest, most intelligent and self-respecting Negro, having by reflex absorbed the "nigger" hatred of their masters.
— International Socialist Review, November 1903
... there is no Negro question outside of the labor question ... The class struggle is colorless. The capitalists, white, black, and other shades, are on one side and the workers, white, black and all other colors, on the other side.
— Ibid.
In the Republican and Democratic national conventions principle is subordinated to personality. "Who are the candidates?" is the all-absorbing question. The people, like helpless children, are forever looking for some great man to watch over and protect them.
— The Comrade, November 1904
Denis Diderot
And with the guts of the last priest let us strangle the last king.
— attributed
Sen. Everett Dirksen
I am a man of principle. And my first principle is flexibility.
— attributed
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Every member of the society spies on the rest, and it is his duty to inform against them ... All are slaves and equal in their slavery ... The great thing about it is equality ... Slaves are bound to be equal.
— The Possessed
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors.
George Engel
Every considerate person must combat a system which makes it possible for the individual to rake and hoard millions in a few years, while on the other side, thousands become tramps and beggars.
— The Philosophy of Anarchism
Friedrich Engels
Terror implies mostly useless cruelty perpetrated by frightened people in order to reassure themselves.
— Letter to Marx, September 14, 1870
Luigi Fabbri
The overriding importance attributed to an act of violence or individual rebellion is the daughter of the overriding importance attributed by bourgeois political doctrine to a few "great men" in comparison to that attributed to society as a whole.
— Bourgeois Influences on Anarchism
Francisco Ferrer
The education of today is nothing more than drill ... children must be accustomed to obey, to believe, to think according to the social dogmas which govern us.
— The Modem School
There is no reason for governments to change their systems. They have succeeded in making education serve their advantage; they will likewise know how to make use of any improvements that may be proposed to their advantage.
It is sufficient that they maintain the spirit of the school, the authoritarian discipline which reigns therein, for all innovations to be turned to their profit. And they will watch their opportunity; be sure of that.
— Ibid.
Ricardo Flores Magon
Capital, Authority, Clergy: This is the hydra which guards the gate of this prison called Earth.
— Speech, October 13, 1911
The world is a prison, a much larger one than those with which we're familiar, but a prison nonetheless. The guards are the police and soldiers; the wardens are the presidents, kings, and emperors,; the watchdogs are the legislators; and in this sense we can exactly equate the armies of prison functionaries and their acts with the armies of government functionaries and their acts. The downtrodden, the plebians, the disinherited masses, are the prisoners, obliged to work to support the army of functionaries and the lazy, thieving rich.
— Ibid.
Ah, order! So whine in these moments the partisans of so-called order. Order for these poor souls can only exist when humanity submits to the clubs of the policeman, the soldier, the judge, the jailer, the hangman, and the governor.
But this is not order. By order I understand harmony; and harmony cannot exist while there exist on this planet some who gorge themselves and others who don't even have a crust of bread to lift to their mouths.
— Regeneración, May 13, 1911
The only thing for which authority is needed is to maintain social inequality. Mexicanos: Death to Authority! Viva Tierra y Libertad!
— Regeneración, February 24, 1912
In sum, the workers fight over bread, they snatch mouthfuls from each other, one is the enemy of the rest, because each searches solely for his own well-being without bothering about the well-being of the rest; and this antagonism between individuals of the same class, this deaf struggle for miserable crumbs, makes our slavery permanent, perpetuates misery, causes our misfortunes — because we don't understand that the interest of our neighbor is our own interest, because we sacrifice ourselves for a poorly understood individual interest, searching in vain for well-being which can only be the result of our interest in the matters which affect all humanity.
— Speech in El Monte, California, 1917
Indifference forges our chains, and we are our own tyrants because we do nothing to destroy them. Indifferent and apathetic, we watch the parade of events as if it were happening on another planet; and as everyone is interested only in himself, with no concern for the general interest, no one feels the need to unite in the struggle for the interests of all. The result is that there is no solidarity among the oppressed, the government knows no limits to its abuses, and bosses of all types make prisoners of us — they enslave us, exploit us, oppress us, and humiliate us.
When we reflect that all of us who suffer the same evils have the same interests, interests common to all the oppressed, and we resolve to show solidarity, then we will be capable of transforming the circumstances which cause our misfortunes into circumstances favorable to our liberty and well-being.
— Ibid.
My fate has been sealed. I have to die within prison walls ... a 21-year sentence is a life-term for me. I do not complain about my fate, however, I am receiving what I have always gotten in my 30 years of struggling for justice — persecution. I knew since the first that my appeals to brotherhood, and love and peace would be answered by the blows of those interested in the preservation of conditions favorable to the enslaving of many by one man. I never expected to succeed in my endeavor, but I felt it to be my duty to persevere ... My present and my future are dark, but I am certain of the bright future which is opened to the human race, and this is my consolation ... There will not be babies whining for milk, there will not be women selling their charms for a crust of bread; competition and enmity will give way to cooperation and love among human beings. Will this not be great?
— Letter to Winnie Branstetter, March 24, 1921
John T. Flynn
Beneath the skin of many a well-advertised liberal lurk the blue corpuscules of a hardened tory. The tragic evil of these misbranded liberals is that they are able to put into effect reactionary measures that conservatives longed for but dared not attempt. When the conservative statesman seeks to adopt some atavistic policy, liberal groups can be counted on to resist the attempt. But when a liberal premier, marching under the banner of liberalism, attempts this there is no opposition or only a feeble one. He paralyzes the natural resistance to such measures by putting a liberal label on them and by silencing or dividing his followers who constitute the natural opposition to his misbranded product.
— As We Go Marching
Let us restate our definition of fascism. It is, put briefly, a system of social organization in which the political state is a dictatorship supported by a political elite and in which the economic society is an autarchial capitalism, enclosed and planned, in which the government assumes responsibility for creating adequate purchasing power through the instrumentality of national debt and in which militarism is adopted as a great economic project for creating work as well as a great romantic project in the service of the imperialist state.
— Ibid.
Anatole France
... moderates are always moderately opposed to violence.
— Penguin Island
Benjamin Franklin
We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.
— prior to the signing of the Declaration of Independence
Henry Clay Frick
We bought the s.o.b., but he didn't stay bought.
— in regard to Teddy Roosevelt's 1904 campaign
Victor Garcia
Columbus was the first economist. He didn't know where he was going. He deceived his men. And he travelled on government money.
Edward Gibbon
A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the last extremes of injustice and oppression.
— The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
William Godwin
The wisdom of Lawmaking and Parliaments has been applied to creating the most wretched and senseless distribution of property, which mocks alike at human nature and the principles of justice.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Heretic's Handbook of Quotations by Charles Bufe. Copyright © 2001 Charles Q. Bufe. Excerpted by permission of See Sharp Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction to First Edition,Introduction to Expanded Edition,
Acknowledgements,
Politics,
Choosing One's Masters,
The Law,
The State,
Freedom,
Express Yourself,
Anarchism,
Marxism,
Revolution,
Patriotism, Nationalism & Imperialism,
The Military,
War,
Property,
Capitalism,
Labor,
Police & Thieves,
Livin' in the USA,
Women,
Misogyny,
Human, All Too Human,
You Are What You Ingest,
Sex,
The Arts,
Science & Scientific Thinking,
Religion,
God & Atheism,
Christianity,
Hell,
Biblical Wisdom,
Capsule Biographies,
Index,