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Having been brought up in a serf-owner’s family, I entered active life, like all young men of my time, with a great deal of confidence in the necessi… - Pyotr Kropotkin
" "Having been brought up in a serf-owner’s family, I entered active life, like all young men of my time, with a great deal of confidence in the necessity of commanding, ordering, scolding, punishing, and the like. But when, at an early stage, I had to manage serious enterprises and to deal with men, and when each mistake would lead at once to heavy consequences, I began to appreciate the difference between acting on the principle of command and discipline, and acting on the principle of common understanding. The former works admirably in a military parade, but it is worth nothing where real life is concerned and the aim can be achieved only through the severe effort of many converging wills.
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About Pyotr Kropotkin
Prince Peter Alexeievich Kropotkin (Пётр Алексе́евич Кропо́ткин) (9 December 1842 – 8 February 1921) was a Russian geographer, zoologist, and one of Russia's foremost anarchist social philosophers, known for promoting forms of anarchist communism.
Biography information from Wikiquote
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Shorter versions of this quote
Having been brought up in a serf-owner's family, I entered active life, like all young men of my time, with a great deal of confidence in the necessity of commanding, ordering, scolding, punishing, and the like. But when, at an early stage, I had to manage serious enterprises... I began to appreciate the difference between acting on the principle of command and discipline, and acting on the principle of common understanding... Men of initiative are required everywhere; but once the impulse has been given, the enterprise must be conducted, ...not in military fashion, but in a sort of communal way.
Additional quotes by Pyotr Kropotkin
It seems to us that there is only one answer to this question: we must recognize, and loudly proclaim, that everyone, whatever his grade in the old society, whether strong or weak, capable or incapable, has, before everything, the right to live, and that society is bound to share among all, without exception, the means of existence it has at its disposal. We must acknowledge this, and proclaim it aloud, and act upon it.
Fine sermons have been preached on the text that those who have should share with those who
have not, but he who would act out this principle is speedily informed that these beautiful sentiments
are all very well in poetry, but not in practice. “To lie is to degrade and besmirch oneself,” we say, and
yet all civilized life becomes one huge lie. We accustom ourselves and our children to hypocrisy, to the
practice of a double-faced morality. And since the brain is ill at ease among lies, we cheat ourselves
with sophistry. Hypocrisy and sophistry become the second nature of the civilized man.
But a society cannot live thus; it must return to truth or cease to exist.
Wage-work is serf-work; it cannot, it must not, produce all that it could produce. And it is high time to disbelieve the legend which represents wagedom as the best incentive to productive work. If industry nowadays brings in a hundred times more than it did in the days of our grandfathers, it is due to the sudden awakening of physical and chemical sciences towards the end of last century; not to the capitalist organization of wagedom, but in spite of that organization.
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