P.j. Proudhon Quotes & Sayings

But what is there in man older and deeper than the religious sentiment?
There is man himself; that is, volition and conscience, free-will and law, eternally antagonistic. Man is at war with himself: why?
"Man," say the theologians, "transgressed in the beginning; our race is guilty of an ancient offence. For this transgression humanity has fallen; error and ignorance have become its sustenance. Read history, you will find universal proof of this necessity for evil in the permanent misery of nations. Man suffers and always will suffer; his disease is hereditary and constitutional. Use palliatives, employ emollients; there is no remedy. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

It is a proof of philosophical mediocrity, today, to look for a philosophy. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Universal suffrage is counter-revolution. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

The notion of anarchy ... means that once industrial functions have taken over from political functions, then business transactions and exchange alone produce the social order. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Every State which breaks the equilibrium in its own favor only causes the other States to combine against it, and thereby diminishes its influence and power. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

The proprietor, producing neither by his own labor nor by his implement, and receiving products in exchange for nothing, is either a parasite or a thief. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Is political and civil inequality just?
Some say yes; others no. To the first I would reply that, when the people abolished all privileges of birth and caste, they did it, in all probability, because it was for their advantage; why then do they favor the privileges of fortune more than those of rank and race? Because, say they, political inequality is a result of property; and without property society is impossible: thus the question just raised becomes a question of property. To the second I content myself with this remark: If you wish to enjoy political equality, abolish property; otherwise, why do you complain? — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

I do not wish to be either governor nor governed! — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

On the one hand, the falsest judgments, whether based on isolated facts or only on appearances, always embrace some truths whose sphere, whether large or small, affords room for a certain number of inferences, beyond which we fall into absurdity. — 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. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

We are told of the time when, with the same beliefs, with the same institutions, all the world seemed happy: why complain of these beliefs; why banish these institutions? We are slow to admit that that happy age served the precise purpose of developing the principle of evil which lay dormant in society; we accuse men and gods, the powers of earth and the forces of Nature. Instead of seeking the cause of the evil in his mind and heart, man blames his masters, his rivals, his neighbors, and himself; nations arm themselves, and slay and exterminate each other, until equilibrium is restored by the vast depopulation, and peace again arises from the ashes of the combatants. So loath is humanity to touch the customs of its ancestors, and to change the laws framed by the founders of communities, and confirmed by the faithful observance of the ages. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

The faults of which we ask you [God] the remittance, it is you who make us commit them; the traps of which we implore you to deliver us, it is you who has set them for us; and the Satan which surrounds us, this Satan, it is you. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

To restore religion, gentlemen, it is necessary to condemn the Church. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

The proprietor, the robber, the hero, the sovereign - for all these titles are synonymous - imposes his will as law, and suffers neither contradiction nor control; that is, he pretends to be the legislative and the executive power at once ... [and so] property engenders despotism ... That is so clearly the essence of property that, to be convinced of it, one need but remember what it is, and observe what happens around him. Property is the right to use and abuse ... if goods are property, why should not the proprietors be kings, and despotic kings - kings in proportion to their facultes bonitaires? And if each proprietor is sovereign lord within the sphere of his property, absolute king throughout his own domain, how could a government of proprietors be any thing but chaos and confusion? — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Does it seem to you impossible to imagine anything more inextricable than the social contract, when you think of the frightful number of relations that it must regulate
something like squaring the circle, or finding perpetual motion? That is the reason why, wearied of the struggle, you fall back on absolutism and force. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

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. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

It will probably surprise many who know nothing of Proudhon save his declaration that 'property is robbery' to learn that he was perhaps the most vigorous hater of Communism that ever lived on this planet. But the apparent inconsistency vanishes when you read his book and find that by property he means simply legally privileged wealth or the power of usury, and not at all the possession by the labourer of his products. — Benjamin Tucker

All my economic ideas as developed over twenty-five years can be summed up in the words: agricultural-industrial federation. All my political ideas boil down to a similar formula: political federation or decentralization. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Liberty is not the daughter but the mother of order. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

The social revolution is seriously compromised if it comes through a political revolution. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

It is better to enlighten men's minds than to teach them to be obstinate in their prejudices. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

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. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Antinomy, that is, the existence of two laws or tendencies which are opposed to each other, is possible, not only with two different things, but with one and the same thing. Considered in their thesis, that is, in the law or tendency which created them, all the economical categories are rational, - competition, monopoly, the balance of trade, and property, as well as the division of labor, machinery, taxation, and credit. But, like communism and population, all these categories are antinomical; all are opposed, not only to each other, but to themselves. All is opposition, and disorder is born of this system of opposition. Hence, the sub-title of the work, - "Philosophy of Misery." No category can be suppressed; the opposition, antinomy, or contre-tendance, which exists in each of them, cannot be suppressed. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

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. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

As man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in anarchy. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

To name a thing is easy: the difficulty is to discern it before its appearance. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Anarchy is ... a form of government or constitution in which public and private consciousness , formed through the development of science and law , is alone sufficient to maintain order and guarantee all liberties. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Whoever lays his hand on me to govern me is a usurper and tyrant, and I declare him my enemy. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Property is theft! — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

The newspapers are the cemeteries of ideas. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon