You don’t question the right of the government to kill, to confiscate and imprison. If a private person should be guilty of the things the government… - Alexander Berkman

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You don’t question the right of the government to kill, to confiscate and imprison. If a private person should be guilty of the things the government is doing all the time, you’d brand him a murderer, thief and scoundrel. But as long as the violence committed is “lawful,” you approve of it and submit to it. So it is not really violence that you object to, but to people using violence “unlawfully.

English
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About Alexander Berkman

Alexander Berkman (November 21, 1870 – June 28, 1936) was a prominent Lithuanian Jewish anarchist, and a close associate of Emma Goldman. His adult life was largely spent in the United States, Germany and France.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Native Name: Александр Осипович Беркман
Alternative Names: Owsei Ossipowitsch Berkman Alexandre Berkman

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Additional quotes by Alexander Berkman

Terrorism is tempting with its tremendous possibilities. It offers a mechanical solution, as it were, in hopeless situations. … the principles of terrorism unavoidably rebound to the fatal injury of liberty and revolution. Absolute power corrupts and defeats its partisans no less than its opponents. A people that knows not liberty becomes accustomed to dictatorship: fighting despotism and counter-revolution, terrorism itself becomes their efficient school. Once on the road of terrorism, the State necessarily becomes estranged from the people.

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