Alexander Berkman quotes

Alexander Berkman was a Russian-American anarchist and writer, prominent for his activism and radical political views. His involvement in labor movements and the attempted assassination of industrialist Henry Clay Frick made him a major figure in the anarchist movement. He became known as an outspoken critic of state power and a champion of workers' rights. Here are 13 of his quotes:

It is the system, rather than individuals, that is the source of pollution and degradation. My prison-house environment is but another manifestation of the Midas-hand, whose cursed touch turns everything to the brutal service of Mammon.

Alexander Berkman

War means blind obedience, unthinking stupidity, brutish callousness, wanton destruction, and irresponsible murder.

Alexander Berkman

Inhumanity is the keynote of stupidity in power.

Alexander Berkman

War paralyzes your courage and deadens the spirit of true manhood.

Alexander Berkman

The social revolution means much more than the reorganization of conditions only: it means the establishment of new human values and social relationships, a changed attitude of man to man, as of one free and independent to his equal; it means a different spirit in individual and collective life, and that spirit cannot be born overnight. It is a spirit to be cultivated, to be nurtured and reared, as the most delicate flower it is, for indeed it is the flower of a new and beautiful existence.

Alexander Berkman

If your object is to secure liberty, you must learn to do without authority and compulsion.

Alexander Berkman

Once on the road of terrorism, the State necessarily becomes estranged from the people.

Alexander Berkman

Liberty is an empty sound as long as you are kept in bondage economically. [...] Freedom means that you have the right to do a certain thing; but if you have no opportunity to do it, that right is sheer mockery. The opportunity lies in your economic condition, whatever the political situation may be. No political rights can be of the least use to the man who is compelled to slave all his life to keep himself and family from starvation.

Alexander Berkman

it is impossible to know the number of individuals whose political awakening-as with Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, long-time revolutionary stalwarts of the next generation came from the Haymarket Affair.

Alexander Berkman

Life was difficult for everyone in Germany after World War I and particularly so for the political refugees. Many of us felt that we had to leave Germany. A number of us went to France, including Sasha and Emma.

Alexander Berkman

The acute physical pain of his prostate gland, his economic difficulties, his precarious status as a political refugee, all combined to cause our warm, genial comrade, who had always been so full of life, to end his sufferings and commit suicide.

Alexander Berkman