Mikhail Bakunin quote: "To my utter despair I have discovered, and discover every day anew, that there is in the masses no revolutionary idea or hope or passion."

I bow before the authority of special men because it is imposed upon me by my own reason.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

The urge to destroy is also a creative urge.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

He who desires to worship God must harbor no childish illusions about the matter but bravely renounc...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

To revolt is a natural tendency of life. Even a worm turns against the foot that crushes it. In gene...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we ha...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other me...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

The passion for destruction is also a creative passion.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does ...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

Does it follow that I reject all authority? Perish the thought. In the matter of boots, I defer to t...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

To revolt is a natural tendency of life. Even a worm turns against the foot that crushes it. In gene...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

From each according to his faculties; to each according to his needs.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie; and the workers want no l...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

From the naturalistic point of view, all men are equal. There are only two exceptions to this rule o...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

The communism of Marx seeks a strong state centralization, and where this exists, there the parasiti...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, the...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

Even the most wretched individual of our present society could not exist and develop without the cum...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

Look at Christ, my dear friend: His life was divine through and through, full of self-denial, and He...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

The privilege of ruling would be in the hands of the skilled and the learned, with a wide scope left...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

The privileged man, whether he be privileged politically or economically, is a man depraved in intel...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

From the naturalistic point of view, all men are equal. There are only two exceptions to this rule...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

Everything will past, and the world will perish but the Ninth Symphony will remain.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

I reverse the phrase of Voltaire, and say that if God really existed, it would be necessary to aboli...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

A divine falsehood is more powerful than any human truth.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

The freedom of all is essential to my freedom.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

Only individuals, and a small number of them at that, can be carried away by an abstract and "pure" ...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

Therefore, if God existed, only in one way could he serve human liberty - by ceasing to exist.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

I am conscious of my inability to grasp, in all its details and positive developments, any very larg...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

But I recognize no infallible authority, even in special questions; consequently, whatever respect I...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

By striving to do the impossible, man has always achieved what is possible. Those who have cautiousl...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

A Boss in Heaven is the best excuse for a boss on earth, therefore If God did exist, he would have t...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

Powerful states can maintain themselves only by crime, little states are virtuous only by weakness.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

Throw a theory into the fire; it only spoils life.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called ‘The Peop...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

Anyone who makes plans for after the revolution is a reactionary
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

Where the state begins, individual liberty ceases, and vice versa.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

I am sure that, on the one hand, the Rothschilds appreciate the merits of Marx, and that on the othe...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

People go to church for the same reasons they go to a tavern: to stupefy themselves, to forget their...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

If there be a human being who is freer than I, then I shall necessarily become his slave. If I am fr...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

A jealous lover of human liberty, and deeming it the absolute condition of all that we admire and re...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

If God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish Him.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

From each according to his faculties; to each according to his needs
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

Freedom without socialism is privillage and injustice... Socialism without freedom is slavery and br...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

The very existence of the State demands that there be some privileged class vitally interested in ma...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

If there is a State, then there is domination, and in turn, there is slavery.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

This contradiction lies here: they wish God, and they wish humanity. They persist in connecting two ...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

Anyone who makes plans for after the revolution is a reactionary.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

Everything will pass, and the world will perish but the Ninth Symphony will remain.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

A jealous lover of human liberty, deeming it the absolute condition of all that we admire and respec...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

The liberty of man consists solely in this, that he obeys the laws of nature because he has himself ...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

People go to church for the same reasons they go to a tavern: to stupefy themselves, to forget their...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

If you took the most ardent revolutionary, vested him in absolute power, within a year he would be w...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

The immense majority of individuals, not only among the ignorant masses but also among the civilized...
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

I am a Communist, a convinced Communist! For some that may be a fantasy. But to me it is my main goa...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

I like to go to anybody else's birthday, and if I'm invited I'm a good guest. But I neve...
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

The world will not accept dictatorship or domination.
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

Dancing is my obsession. My life.
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

Many a calm river begins as a turbulent waterfall, yet none hurtles and foams all the way to the sea...
MIKHAIL LERMONTOV

I want to do exactly what I want to do. I'd rather gamble on the box office than beg for a grant...
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

If people don't like Marxism, they should blame the British Museum.
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

Political leaders still think things can be done through force, but that cannot solve terrorism. Bac...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

For years, I had a top secret clearance and never left Russia. Just once did I go to Bulgaria with m...
MIKHAIL KALASHNIKOV

My life's work has been accomplished. I did all that I could.
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

The essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure.
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

If what you have done yesterday still looks big to you, you haven't done much today.
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

He in his madness prays for storms, and dreams that storms will bring him peace
MIKHAIL LERMONTOV

You're not Dostoevsky,' said the citizeness, who was getting muddled by Koroviev. Well, who knows, w...
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV

The market came with the dawn of civilization and it is not an invention of capitalism. If it leads ...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

Jesus was the first socialist, the first to seek a better life for mankind.
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

Democracy is the wholesome and pure air without which a socialist public organization cannot live a ...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

The poets were not alone in sanctioning myths, for long before the poets the states and the lawmaker...
MIKHAIL STRABO

The soviet people want full-blooded and unconditional democracy.
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

I am not the first straight dancer or the last.
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

The essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to to dance better than myself.
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

Only you can hold yourself back, only you can stand in your own way. Only you can help yourself.
MIKHAIL STRABO

What we need is Star Peace and not Star Wars.
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

But would you kindly ponder this question: What would your good do if
evil didn't exist, and w...
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV

I adored my mother, and I will always have extraordinary memories about her and remember her, and sh...
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

We lived, until I was 12 or so, in communal apartment with five different families and the same kitc...
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

America must be the teacher of democracy, not the advertiser of the consumer society. It is unrealis...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

I think the environmental problem will be the number one item on the agenda of the 21st century... T...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

Large companies cannot finance political parties as their shareholders and employees have different ...
MIKHAIL KHODORKOVSKY

I don't drink milk, and I don't eat bread, pasta or rice. But I eat a lot of meat, chicken, ...
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

The body cannot lie. You cannot be somebody else onstage, no matter how good of an actor or dancer o...
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

My life has been immensely enriched by gay mentors, colleagues and friends, and any discrimination a...
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

I kind of lost interest in the classical dance. I was very much interested in the modern choreograph...
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

You open a section of 'The New York Times,' and there's a review or a story on a choreog...
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

Why do smart people exist, if not to figure out convoluted problems?
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV

No dancer can watch Fred Astaire and not know that we all should have been in another business.
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

Vast sections of the world's population are inspired by the same desires and live for common int...
MIKHAIL SHOLOKHOV

I do not consider the AK to be the best-ever assault rifle.
MIKHAIL KALASHNIKOV

We could only solve our problems by cooperating with other countries. It would have been paradoxical...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

It is better to discuss things, to argue and engage in polemics than make perfidious plans of mutual...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

Dance is one of the most revealing art forms.
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

I have been very lucky to work in so many new ballets, but that is what a dancer's work is.
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

A country like Belgium, or socialist countries in central Europe spend more money on art education t...
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

People often ask me how I feel about my invention being used to kill people every day and the AK bei...
MIKHAIL KALASHNIKOV

I believe, as Lenin said, that this revolutionary chaos may yet crystallize into new forms of life.
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

I found that dance, music, and literature is how I made sense of the world... it pushed me to think ...
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

Dances have a second and third life. You feel they are never ready. They always have a chance for an...
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

You see, dancers are quite mature people because they start performing so early. They become profess...
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

We practically always excuse things when we understand them
MIKHAIL LERMONTOV

Love, like fire, goes out without fuel.
MIKHAIL LERMONTOV

I've always said, 'I am a selector, I am not defector' - the first few phrases in Englis...
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

I was very restless. I really wanted to be a part of a kind of a progressive society. I was fed up w...
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

In my opinion, the true pioneers are those artists who make manifest in their works the new content,...
MIKHAIL SHOLOKHOV

There should be competition and exchanges between different countries, but there are certainly certa...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

I like everything to be dependable, heavy, English furniture.
MIKHAIL KHODORKOVSKY

Always choose the hardest route, because the results will be more efficient.
GEORGE MIKHAIL

The enemy of your enemy is your friend.
GEORGE MIKHAIL

I like when I don't have to be careful what I say. That's when you know you're with the right people
GEORGE MIKHAIL

Life is Maths, lots of correct methods, same outcome
GEORGE MIKHAIL

Be yourself instead of being a copy of some else because you are strong enough to beat the world.
GEORGE MIKHAIL

I wanted to invent an engine that could run for ever. I could have developed a new train, had I stay...
MIKHAIL KALASHNIKOV

I grew up in a family of peasants, and it was there that I saw the way that, for example, our wheat ...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

Most likely the whole of the front section has been flooded and the staff in those sections died in ...
MIKHAIL MOTSAK

I knew President Yeltsin well. He would never have tolerated government officials demonstratively sh...
MIKHAIL KHODORKOVSKY

No one doing big business can avoid some contact with government agencies, regulators, and policy ma...
MIKHAIL PROKHOROV

Surely, God on high has not refused to give us enough wisdom to find ways to bring us an improvement...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

I cannot belong to a nonprofit organization because when you receive grants, you have to make such g...
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

Poetry is not a profession, it is a destiny
MIKHAIL DUDAN

We had grain but no mills, so I designed a special mill of wood so we could make flour.
MIKHAIL KALASHNIKOV

In the documents given to the Russian side by the Volcker Commission, there is no base of evidence, ...
MIKHAIL KAMYNIN

The return to the moratorium is one of the components.
MIKHAIL KAMYNIN

Georgia is a sovereign state that decides on its own in what organization it should be represented.
MIKHAIL KAMYNIN

Without perestroika, the cold war simply would not have ended. But the world could not continue deve...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

We must not yield to panic
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

We don't need to kiss each other, we don't need to flirt with each other, we have to -- seriously on...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

If not me, who? And if not now, when?
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

It would be naive to think that the problems plaguing mankind today can be solved with means and met...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

The more injuries you get, the smarter you get.
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

Imagine a country that flies into space, launches Sputniks, creates such a defense system, and it ca...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

If current technological processes continue without change, the environment will change, and we, the...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

We have not received any reply to the Russian proposal from Iran.
MIKHAIL KAMYNIN

What would your good do if evil didn't exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows ...
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV

I think art education, especially in this country, which government pretty much ignores, is so impor...
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

What about Jesus Christ? I say that he was a precursor of idealists; a precursor of socialists.
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

The caricature [on Anne Frank] convinced me to expand my April PACE report because, unfortunately, m...
MIKHAIL MARGELOV

A birthday party will be a modest one, and I shall celebrate it with relatives and friends.
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

In Russia, we still have a great deal of work to do.
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

We spent the first days trying to get the picture. I can't agree that we were trying to conduct a sl...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

We have not yet left the past behind: its death grip can be felt everywhere.
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

She tells me everything I know about the Soviet Union.
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

I think Russia is ready to cooperate. Now the question is, is the United States -- which is the only...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

There is only research for medical purposes, similar to ones that are under way in some other countr...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

More socialism means more democracy, openness and collectivism in everyday life.
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

It seems that the most important thing about Reagan was his anti-Communism and his reputation as a h...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

a great deal is still to be done before stability develops into national accord.
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

Those who want Russia to continue to grow in IT should work with Russian companies, with our science...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

[At the Air Force One ceremony, Bush recalled Reagan's 1982 prediction in London that freedom and de...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

The Berlin Wall was a mark of contradictions in the world, and it became a mark of radical changes i...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

It's what's left in life, to work with interesting people.
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

On the day I became Soviet leader, in March 1985, I had a special meeting with the leaders of the Wa...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

The Russian people get so insanely close to each other as friends. Their lives are interrelated so m...
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

Our enemy sees us clearly. They will not start a war. They're worried about one thing: If democracy ...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

But what can be done, the one who loves must share the fate of the one he loves.
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV

Often you shall think your road impassable, sombre and companionless. Have will and plod along; and ...
MIKHAIL NAIMY

Now there is in a way a renaissance of modern dance - suddenly, it is more respected and discovered.
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

The Russian side has presented the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia with the necessa...
MIKHAIL KAMYNIN

European countries have not granted visas to members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, who wer...
MIKHAIL MARGELOV

From this point of view the nuclear plant does not constitute any threat to the non-proliferation re...
MIKHAIL KAMYNIN

We expect Slovakia to join in the creation of four common Russia-EU spaces and the enhancement of co...
MIKHAIL KAMYNIN

It seems that the most important thing about Reagan was his anti-Communism and his reputation as a h...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

Nobody should be whipped. Remember that, once and for all. Neither man nor animal can be influenced ...
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV

Kindness. The only possible method when dealing with a living creature. You'll get nowhere with an a...
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV

I was not extremely patriotic about Mother Russia. I played their game, pretending. You have to deal...
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

I would like to go and dance in Palestine one day, with great pleasure, great pleasure.
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

And now tell me, why is it that you use me words "good people" all the time? Do you call everyone th...
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV

Certain people in the United States are driving nails into this structure of our relationship, then ...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

Reagan was a statesman who, despite all disagreements that existed between our countries at the time...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

One can speak of sanctions only after the appearance of concrete facts proving that Iran is not enga...
MIKHAIL KAMYNIN

We will only be able to talk about sanctions after we have concrete facts confirming that Iran is no...
MIKHAIL KAMYNIN

At the present time, the concerns of the international community over the Iranian nuclear program ca...
MIKHAIL KAMYNIN

Sanctions could only be discussed when evidence is provided that Iran is pursuing not only peaceful ...
MIKHAIL KAMYNIN

Only the Council is authorized to make binding decisions on suspending cooperation with a state in a...
MIKHAIL KAMYNIN

The adoption of a commitment on ending cooperation with this or that state in some sphere lies exclu...
MIKHAIL KAMYNIN

The Iranian government has made no positive steps demanded in the February 4 resolution of the board...
MIKHAIL KAMYNIN

The arms export control system we have developed is one of the strictest and most reliable in the wo...
MIKHAIL KAMYNIN

Russia will strictly abide by the existing agreements and contracts with Western partners in the del...
MIKHAIL KAMYNIN

Despite the intensive three-year work, the IAEA cannot yet make a conclusion about the absence of un...
MIKHAIL KAMYNIN

I fell in love with New York. It was like every human being, like any relationship. When I was a you...
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

The problem is not making up the steps but deciding which ones to keep.
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

Of course I invited Bush and Margaret Thatcher and (Spanish former prime minister) Felipe Gonzalez, ...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

Happy people are ignoramuses and glory is nothing else but success, and to achieve it one only has t...
MIKHAIL LERMONTOV

O vanity! you are the lever by means of which Archimedes wished to lift the earth!
MIKHAIL LERMONTOV

While adhering to his convictions, with which one could agree or disagree, he was not dogmatic; he w...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

I think we need more young people; we need to elect young people to government. We need to give them...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

Poetry is not a profession, it is a destiny.
MIKHAIL DUDAN

Russia's position is that status issues must be discussed at the third stage of talks within the Joi...
MIKHAIL KAMYNIN

I can see one guy doing what we call an 'air flare' ... and I'll see 30 other individuals do the sam...
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

devotion to his followers is a remarkable example to all of us.
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

There is no love sincerer than the love of food
GEORGE MIKHAIL

[Gorbachev, who once said the collapse of the Iron Curtain would have been impossible without the po...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

Every country should conduct its own reforms, should develop its own model, taking into account the ...
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

Sometimes, if I need assistance on the government level, I can appeal through official channels. For...
MIKHAIL PROKHOROV

I made it to protect the motherland.
MIKHAIL KALASHNIKOV

Milosevic's advisers handed the Russian Embassy in the Netherlands a letter to the Russian Foreign M...
MIKHAIL KAMYNIN

Only when you get closer do you see individual sources that make up the glow.
MIKHAIL REVNIVTSEV

To my utter despair I have discovered, and discover every day anew, that there is in the masses no revolutionary idea or hope or passion.

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Mikhail Bakunin

To my utter despair I have discovered, and discover every day anew, that there is in the masses no revolutionary idea or hope or passion.

Mikhail Bakunin

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