Ari > Ari's Quotes

“Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of things in England, the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism

“Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?”
― Albert Camus

“What is a rebel? A man who says no.”
― Albert Camus

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
― Albert Camus

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“You can never be overdressed or overeducated.”
― Oscar Wilde

“We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.”
― Oscar Wilde

“The real political task in a society such as ours is to criticize the workings of institutions that appear to be both neutral and independent, to criticize and attack them in such a manner that the political violence that has always exercised itself obscurely through them will be unmasked, so that one can fight against them.”
― Michel Foucault, The Chomsky-Foucault Debate: On Human Nature

“Where there is power, there is resistance.”
― Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction

“Schools serve the same social functions as prisons and mental institutions- to define, classify, control, and regulate people.”
― Michel Foucault

“Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth.”
― Lucy Parsons, Lucy Parsons: Freedom, Equality & Solidarity - Writings & Speeches, 1878-1937

“Anarchists know that a long period of education must precede any great fundamental change in society, hence they do not believe in vote begging, nor political campaigns, but rather in the development of self-thinking individuals.”
― Lucy Parsons

“Anarchism is the revolutionary idea that no one is more qualified than you are to decide what your life will be.”
― Crimethinc, Days of War, Nights of Love: Crimethink For Beginners

“Note: When reading dry political theory, such as the texts you will find on the following pages, it may be useful to apply the Exclamation Point Test from time to time, to determine if the material you are reading is actually relevant to your life. To apply this test, simply go through the text replacing all the punctuation marks at the ends of the sentences with exclamation points. If the results sound absurd when read aloud, then you know you're wasting your time.”
― CrimethInc., Days of War, Nights of Love: Crimethink For Beginners

“The ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently.”
― David Graeber, The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy

“We have become a civilization based on work—not even “productive work” but work as an end and meaning in itself.”
― David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory

“The Iron Law of Liberalism states that any market reform, any government initiative intended to reduce red tape and promote market forces will have the ultimate effect of increasing the total number of regulations, the total amount of paperwork, and the total number of bureaucrats the government employs.”
― David Graeber, The Utopia of Rules

“This society eliminates geographical distance only to produce a new internal separation.”
― Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle

“The more powerful the class, the more it claims not to exist.”
― Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle

“If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps this construct called ‘sex’ is as culturally constructed as gender; indeed, perhaps it was always already gender, with the consequence that the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all.”
― Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity

“Never work.”
― Guy Debord