Proudhon What Is Property Quotes & Sayings

Moreover, in fits of anger, in fears, in the disturbances that come over souls in bad fortune and the release from such things that comes with good fortune, in the
experiences brought by diseases and wars and poverty, and the experiences brought upon human beings by the opposite circumstances - in all such situations what is noble and what is ignoble in each case must be taught and defined. — Plato

If one were to ask ... "What is slavery?" and I should answer in one word, "murder," my meaning would be understood at once. Why, then, to this other question: "What is property?" may I not likewise answer, "theft" ... ? — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

The truly ambitious are always as busy on the landings as they are breathless on the stairs. — Louis Kronenberger

The possessions of the rich are stolen property. — 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

A father of the church said that property was theft, many centuries before Proudhon was born. Bourdaloue reaffirmed it. Montesquieu was the inventor of national workshops and of the theory that the state owed every man a living. Nay, was not the church herself the first organized democracy? — James Russell Lowell

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

AXIOM. - Property is the Right of Increase claimed by the Proprietor over any thing which he has stamped as his own. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you are withholding from the world. — Eckhart Tolle

The East was no longer a threat to the western world, and when there's nothing to fear we turn our backs, we look elsewhere. Eastern literature is still the poor relative that everyone wants to forget, the Cinderella who hasn't (yet) found her prince. — Dumitru Tepeneag

Communism
the first expression of the social nature
is the first term of social development
the thesis; property, the reverse of communism, is the second term
the antithesis. When we have discovered the third term, the synthesis, we shall have the required solution. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

God does not give us ready money. He issues promissory notes, and then pays them at the throne. Each one of us has a check-book. — Theodore L. Cuyler

A lover's quarrel is always about every quarrel you ever had. — Robert Breault

The purchaser draws boundaries, fences himself in, and says, "This is mine; each one by himself, each one for himself." Here, then, is a piece of land upon which, henceforth, no one has a right to step, save the proprietor and his friends; which can benefit nobody, save the proprietor and his servants. Let these sales multiply, and soon the people - who have been neither able nor willing to sell, and who have received none of the proceeds of the sale - will have nowhere to rest, no place of shelter, no ground to till. They will die of hunger at the proprietor's door, on the edge of that property which was their birthright; and the proprietor, watching them die, will exclaim, "So perish idlers and vagrants! — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Property, said Proudhon, is theft. This is the only perfect truism that has been uttered on the subject. — George Bernard Shaw

We want property, but property restored to its proper limits, that is to say, free distribution of the products of labour, property minus usury! — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Property is impossible. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

We should know mankind better if we were not so anxious to resemble one another. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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

My first record was about childhood. There were a lot of nursery rhyme and fairytale references; it was all about being naive. — Mika.

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

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

Of riches it is not necessary to write the praise. Let it, however, be remembered that he who has money to spare has it always in his power to benefit others, and of such power a good man must always be desirous. — Samuel Johnson

Property is theft! — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon