“If you took the most ardent revolutionary, vested him in absolute power, within a year he would be worse than the Tsar himself.”

“The freedom of all is essential to my freedom.”

“Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does good not because he is forced to do so, but because he freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it.”

“Even the most wretched individual of our present society could not exist and develop without the cumulative social efforts of countless generations.”

“Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.”

“I am conscious of my inability to grasp, in all its details and positive developments, any very large portion of human knowledge.”

“He who desires to worship God must harbor no childish illusions about the matter but bravely renounce his liberty and humanity.”

“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.”

“Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie; and the workers want no lying.”

“From the naturalistic point of view, all men are equal. There are only two exceptions to this rule of naturalistic equality: geniuses and idiots.”

“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.”