Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Order Quotations

All men are equal and free: society by nature, and destination, is therefore autonomous and ungovernable. If the sphere of activity of each citizen is determined by the natural division of work and by the choice he makes of a profession, if the social functions are combined in such a way as to produce a harmonious effect, order results from the free activity of all men; there is no government. Whoever puts a hand on me to govern me is an usurper and a tyrant; I declare him my enemy.

Anarchy is order, government is civil war.

I stand ready to negotiate, but I want no part of laws: I acknowledge none; I protest against every order with which some authority may feel pleased on the basis of some alleged necessity to over-rule my free will. 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.

Liberty is not the daughter but the mother of order.

As man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in anarchy.

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.

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.

By no means. I have just given you my serious and well-considered profession of faith. Although a firm friend of order, I am (in the full force of the term) an anarchist. Listen to me.

it is the liberty that is the mother, not the daughter, of order.