"Ben" Yair’s Reviews > Memoirs of a Revolutionist > Status Update

"Those who are prone to speak of the slowness of evolution ought to study the development of socialism in England. Evolution is slow; but its rate is not uniform. It has its periods of slumber and its periods of sudden progress."

-Kropotkin, Pyotr. Memoirs of a Revolutionist.

"We certainly foresaw that if full freedom were left to the individual for the expression of his ideas and for action, we should have to face a certain amount of extravagant exaggeration of our principles. I had seen it in the nihilist movement in Russia."

-Kropotkin, Pyotr. Memoirs of a Revolutionist.

'This open gate fascinated me. “I must not stare at it,” I said to myself; and yet I looked at it all the time.'

-Kropotkin, Pyotr. Memoirs of a Revolutionist.

'“Till sunset” were the words used by Alexander II when he granted the permission.'

-Kropotkin, Pyotr. Memoirs of a Revolutionist.

"The life of civilized people is full of little conventional lies. Persons who hate each other, meeting in the street, make their faces radiant with a happy smile; the nihilist remained unmoved, and smiled only for those whom he was really glad to meet."

-Kropotikin, Pyotr. Memoirs of a Revolutionist.

"But the egalitarian relations which I found in the Jura Mountains, the independence of thought and expression which I saw developing in the workers, and their unlimited devotion to the cause appealed far more strongly to my feelings; and when I came away from the mountains, after a week’s stay with the watchmakers, my views upon socialism were settled. I was an anarchist."

-Kropotkin, Pyotr. Memoirs.

"Was there ever before in history, I ask myself, a youthful band engaging in a fight against so formidable a foe, so deserted by fathers and even by elder brothers, although those young men had merely taken to heart, and had tried to realize in life, the intellectual inheritance of these same fathers and brothers? Was there ever a struggle undertaken in more tragical conditions than these?"

-Kropotkin, Pyotr.

'My hopes were realized. But in the meantime, other thoughts and other longings had pervaded my mind. I seriously thought over the reply, and wired, “Most cordial thanks, but cannot accept.”'

-Kropotkin, Pyotr. Memoirs of a Revolutionist.

“What sort of receipt do you want?”

“Well, you write on a paper: ‘I, the undersigned, hereby testify that I was drowned by the will of God, and through no fault of the peasants,’ and you give us that paper.”

“With pleasure—on the other shore.”

-Kropotkin, Pyotr. Memoirs of a Revolutionist.

"The Tsar was very angry with his son, and ordered him to follow the hearse of the officer to the grave. But even this terrible lesson did not cure the young man of his Romànoff haughtiness and impetuosity."

-Kropotkin, Pyotr. Memoirs of a Revolutionist.