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Gustav Landauer Quotes

Gustav Landauer was one of the leading theorists on anarchism in Germany at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. He was an advocate of social anarchism and an avowed pacifist. In 1919, during the German Revolution, he was briefly Commissioner of Enlightenment and Public Instruction of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic. He was killed when this Republic was overthrown.

Landauer is also known for his study of metaphysics and religion, and his translations of William Shakespeare's works into German. Wikipedia  

✵ 7. April 1870 – 2. May 1919
Gustav Landauer photo
Gustav Landauer: 4   quotes 1   like

Famous Gustav Landauer Quotes

“A goal can only be reached if the means are in consonance with its essential nature. One will never attain non-violence through violence.”

Gustav Landauer

Letter from Landauer to Martin Buber 1901, quoted in Martin Buber's Life and Work, vol. I by M. Friedman 1981, p. 251

“There is no "state" on the one hand, and people who live in it on the other. The "state" much rather belongs to what people do and understand. People do not live in the state. The state lives in the people.”

Gustav Landauer

"Tucker's Revelation," in Revolution and Other Writings: A Political Reader, p. 249

“Anarchy is not a matter of the future; it is a matter of the present. It is not a matter of making demands; it is a matter of how one lives.”

Gustav Landauer

"Anarchic Thoughts on Anarchism," in Revolution and Other Writings: A Political Reader, p. 87

“Now it can become clear to man that freedom and peace of the nations can only come when as Jesus and his followers, and in our time above all Tolstoi advised, they choose to fully abstain from any violence.”

Gustav Landauer

Letter from Landauer to Martin Buber 1914, quoted in Martin Buber's Life and Work, vol. I by M. Friedman 1981, pp. 251-252

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