Thus, as I have already observed, materialism starts from animality to establish humanity; idealism starts from divinity to establish slavery and con… - Mikhail Bakunin

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Thus, as I have already observed, materialism starts from animality to establish humanity; idealism starts from divinity to establish slavery and condemn the masses to an endless animality. Materialism denies free will and ends in the establishment of liberty; idealism, in the name of human dignity, proclaims free will, and on the ruins of every liberty founds authority. Materialism rejects the principle of authority, because it rightly considers it as the corollary of animality, and because, on the contrary, the triumph of humanity, the object and chief significance of history, can be realised only through liberty. In a word, you will always find the idealists in the very act of practical materialism, while you will see the materialists pursuing and realising the most grandly ideal aspirations and thoughts.

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About Mikhail Bakunin

Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin (Russian: Михаил Александрович Бакунин) (30 May 1814 – 1 July 1876) was a Russian political philosopher, anarchist, and noted atheist.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Native Name: Михаи́л Алекса́ндрович Баку́нин
Alternative Names: Michael Bakunin Michail Alexandrovich Bakunin A. M. Bakunin Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin Bakunin
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There will be a qualitative transformation, a new living, life-giving revelation, a new heaven and a new earth, a young and mighty world in which all our present dissonances will be resolved into a harmonious whole.

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Among the greatest geniuses to date, few have actually done anything for the people. A nation’s geniuses are highly aristocratic, and everything they have done up to now has served only to educate, strengthen, and enrich the exploiting minority. The poor masses, forsaken and abused by everyone, have had to break their own martyr’s path to freedom and light by means of an infinite number of obscure and fruitless efforts.

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