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 listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure.
• Thence results, for science as well as for industry, the necessity of the division and association of labor. I receive and I give - such is human life. Each directs and is directed in his turn.
• Even the most wretched individual of our present society could not exist and develop without the cumulative social efforts of countless generations.
• Such a faith would be fatal to my reason, to my liberty, and even to the success of my undertakings it would immediately transform me into a stupid slave, an instrument of the will and interests of others.
• I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation.
• A Boss in Heaven is the best excuse for a boss on earth, therefore If God did exist, he would have to be abolished.
• From the naturalistic point of view, all men are equal. There are only two exceptions to this rule of naturalistic equality: geniuses and idiots.
• Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie and the workers want no lying.
• But I recognize no infallible authority, even in special questions consequently, whatever respect I may have for the honesty and the sincerity of such or such an individual, I have no absolute faith in any person.
• Such a faith would be fatal to my reason, to my liberty, and even to the success of my undertakings it would immediately transform me into a stupid slave, an instrument of the will and interests of others.