"The need for a new life becomes apparent. The code of established morality, that which governs the greater number of people in their daily life, no longer seems sufficient. What formerly seemed just is now felt to be a crying injustice. The morality of yesterday is today recognized as revolting immorality. The conflict between new ideas and old traditions flames up in every class of society, in every possible environment, in the very bosom of the family. β¦ Those who long for the triumph of justice, those who would put new ideas into practice, are soon forced to recognize that the realization of their generous, humanitarian and regenerating ideas cannot take place in a society thus constituted; they perceive the necessity of a revolutionary whirlwind which will sweep away all this rottenness, revive sluggish hearts with its breath, and bring to mankind that spirit of devotion, self-denial, and heroism, without which society sinks through degradation and vileness into complete disintegration."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Peter_Kropotkin
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Peter Kropotkin
161 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Peter Kropotkin β
Related Quotes
"That we are Utopians is well known. So Utopian are we that we go the length of believing that the Revolution can and β¦"
"Oh, the beautiful utopia, the lovely Christmas dream we can make as soon as we admit that those who govern represent β¦"
"Have not prisons β which kill all will and force of character in man, which enclose within their walls more vices thaβ¦"
"Once a German jurist of great renown, Ihering, wanted to sum up the scientific work of his life and write a treatise,β¦"
"It is often said that Anarchists live in a world of dreams to come, and do not see the things which happen today. We β¦"
"Ah, if men were those superior beings that the utopians of authority like to speak to us of, if we could close our eyβ¦"
"What we do want is so to arrange things that every human being born into the world shall be ensured the opportunity iβ¦"
"Has not experience demonstrated quite recently that Jack the Ripper performed his exploits under the eye of the Londoβ¦"
"When we ask for the abolition of the State and its organs we are always told that we dream of a society composed of mβ¦"
"When we ask ourselves by what means a certain moral level can be maintained in a human or animal society, we find onlβ¦"