The lovely woman-child Kaa was mercilessly chained to the cruel post of
the warrior-chief Beast, with his barbarian tribe now stacking wood at
her nubile feet, when the strong clear voice of the poetic and heroic
Handsomas roared, 'Flick your Bic, crisp that chick, and you'll feel my
steel through your last meal!'
-- Winning sentence, 1984 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.
Obviously, the revolution will produce many misfortunes, many sufferings; but if it produced one hundred times more of them, it would still be a blessing relative to what one endures today.
-- Errico Malatesta
Q: What's the contour integral around Western Europe?
A: Zero, because all the Poles are in Eastern Europe!
Addendum: Actually, there ARE some Poles in Western Europe, but they
are removable!
Q: An English mathematician (I forgot who) was asked by his
very religious colleague: Do you believe in one God?
A: Yes, up to isomorphism!
Q: What is a compact city?
A: It's a city that can be guarded by finitely many near-sighted
policemen!
-- Peter Lax
There is a conflict between the static and dynamic conceptions of anarchism, between those who want to gregarize and stabilize anarchism and those who want the revolutionary, individualist spirit to remain and simmer permanently within anarchism.
-- Emile Armand
What consoles me is that there are combatants that remain, because despite all the persecution, the anarchist idea has germinated and the theoretical revolution is ending, being quickly replaced by the practice of action.
-- Clement Duval
If the federal government had access to every email you've ever written and every phone call you've ever made, it's almost certain that they could find something you've done which violates a provision in the 27,000 pages of federal statues or 10,000 administrative regulations. You probably do have something to hide, you just don't know it yet.
-- Moxie Marlinspike
Governments never lead; they follow progress. When the prison, stake or scaffold can no longer silence the voice of the protesting minority, progress moves on a step, but not until then.
-- Lucy Parsons
Social ecology is based on the conviction that nearly all of our present ecological problems originate in deep-seated social problems.
-- Murray Bookchin
God and mankind have concerned themselves for nothing, for nothing but themselves. Let me then likewise concern myself for myself, who am equally with God the nothing of all others, who am my all, who am the only one.
-- Max Stirner
The outcome of this vote will, at best, slow down the rate at which the American government gravitates towards plutocracy, police statism and global corporate Empire.
-- Kevin Carson
It is from the love of humanity that we are revolutionaries: it is not our fault if history has forced on us this distressing necessity.
-- Errico Malatesta
Anarchy -- the sovereignty of the individual over his own actions -- is the goal for which we strive. Communism is one of those incidents that come afterwards.
-- Joseph Labadie
These revolutionaries, bare-necked politickers, have preserved with the imprint of the collar, the moral stain of servitude, the stiff neck of despotism.
-- Joseph Dejacque
Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt
of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He
brought death into the world.
-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
Just as I'm opposed to political fascism, I'm opposed to economic fascism. I think that until major institutions of society are under the popular control of participants and communities, it's pointless to talk about democracy.
-- Noam Chomsky
If the federal government can't even count how many laws there are, what chance does an individual have of being certain that they are not acting in violation of one of them?
-- Moxie Marlinspike
Q: How many Bell Labs Vice Presidents does it take to change a light bulb?
A: That's proprietary information. Answer available from AT&T on payment
of license fee (binary only).
When we have undermined the patriotic lie, we shall have cleared the path for the great structure where all shall be united into a universal brotherhood -- a truly free society.
-- Emma Goldman
The bay-trees in our country are all wither'd
And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;
The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth
And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change.
These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.
-- Wm. Shakespeare, "Richard II"
Q: How many gradual (sorry, that's supposed to be "graduate") students
does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: "I'm afraid we don't know, but make my stipend tax-free, give my
advisor a $30,000 grant of the taxpayer's money, and I'm sure he
can tell me how to do the gruntwork for him so he can take the
credit for answering this incredibly vital question."
Q: How many Californians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Five. One to screw in the light bulb and four to share the
experience. (Actually, Californians don't screw in
light bulbs, they screw in hot tubs.)
Q: How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Three. One to screw in the light bulb and two to fend off all
those Californians trying to share the experience.
In Spain, we should have enough intelligence, enough sense of individual and collective responsibility to do for ourselves that which would be imposed upon us by a dictatorship.
-- Frederica Montseny
Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man?
-- Henry David Thoreau
Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails,
whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through
the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush!
-- Captain Ahab, "Moby Dick"
The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: Your money, or your life. And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat.
-- Lysander Spooner
The social order of Spain ought to be overthrown; must be overthrown, will be overthrown; and Ferrer was doing a mighty work in that direction. The men who killed him knew and understood it well.
-- Voltairine de Cleyre
Nothing wrong with communist anarchism as long as it remains voluntary. Any one that wants to go make a commune, go ahead, do it. I got nothing against it. As long as there's room to the individualist to do his or her own thing.
-- Robert Anton Wilson
What we mean by equality between the sexes is not just that men will no longer oppress women. We also want men to no longer be oppressed by other men and women no longer to be oppressed by other women.
-- He Zhen
The people are conservative: they are satisfied with the society they find. The minority are innovators instead and therefore they rebel.
-- Bruno Filippi
October 12, the Discovery.
It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss
it.
-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
For the fashion of Minas Tirith was such that it was built on seven levels,
each delved into a hill, and about each was set a wall, and in each wall
was a gate.
-- J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Return of the King"
[Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when
referring to system overview.]
Even the clearest and most perfect circumstantial evidence is likely to be at
fault, after all, and therefore ought to be received with great caution. Take
the case of any pencil, sharpened by any woman; if you have witnesses, you will
find she did it with a knife; but if you take simply the aspect of the pencil,
you will say that she did it with her teeth.
-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
The task of the conscious minority is to profit from every situation to change the environment in a way that will make possible the education of the whole people.
-- Errico Malatesta
Before the sacred, people lose all sense of power and all confidence; they occupy a powerless and humble attitude toward it. And yet no thing is sacred of itself, but by my declaring it sacred, by my declaration, my judgment, my bending the knee; in short, by my conscience.
-- Max Stirner
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