To be governed ... is to be watched, inspected, directed, indoctrinated, numbered, estimated, regulated, commanded, controlled, law-driven, preached at, spied upon, censured, checked, valued, enrolled - by creatures who have neither the right, nor the wisdom, nor the virtue to do so.
Pierre-Joseph ProudhonAll parties without exception, when they seek for power, are varieties of absolutism.
Pierre-Joseph ProudhonWe want property, but property restored to its proper limits, that is to say, free distribution of the products of labour, property minus usury!
Pierre-Joseph ProudhonTo be governed is, under pretext of public utility and in the name of the general interest, to be laid under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, exhausted, hoaxed and robbed; then, upon the slightest resistance, at the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, annoyed, hunted down, pulled about, beaten, disarmed, bound, imprisoned, shot, judged, condemned, banished, sacrificed, sold, betrayed, and, to crown all, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored.
Pierre-Joseph ProudhonThe law does not generate justice. The law is nothing but a declaration and application of what is just.
Pierre-Joseph ProudhonDemocracy is nothing but the Tyranny of Majorities, the most abominable tyranny of all, for it is not based on the authority of a religion, not upon the nobility of a race, not on the merits of talents and of riches. It merely rests upon numbers and hides behind the name of the people.
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon