“Ah jist shrugged, -- Well, as one anarchist plumber sais tae the other: smash the cistern.”

—  Irvine Welsh , book The Acid House

A conversation between plumbers.
"A Blockage in the System".
The Acid House (1994)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Ah jist shrugged, -- Well, as one anarchist plumber sais tae the other: smash the cistern." by Irvine Welsh?
Irvine Welsh photo
Irvine Welsh 41
Scottish novelist 1958

Related quotes

Irvine Welsh photo

“Funny scene, likesay, how aw the psychos seem tae ken each other, ken what ah means, likes?”

Irvine Welsh book Trainspotting

Spud, "Kicking Again: Na Na and Other Nazis" (Chapter 3, Story 2).
Trainspotting (1993)

Irvine Welsh photo

“I dinnae Tam, ah jist dinnae. Life's boring and futile. We start oaf wi high hopes, then we bottle it. We realize that we're aw gaunnae die, withoot really findin oot the big answers. We develop aw they long-winded ideas which jist interpret the reality ay oor lives in different weys, withoot really extending oor body ay worthwhile knowledge, about the big things, the real things. Basically, we live a short, disappointing life; and then we die. We fill oor lives up wi shite, shite like joabs n relationships, tae delude ourselves intae thinkin that it isnae aw totally pointless. Smack's an honest drug, because it strips away these delusions. It's the only really honest drug. It disnae alter yir consciousness. It jist gies ye a hit and a sense ay well-being. After that, ye see the misery ay the world as it is, and ye cannae anesthaetise yirsel against it.”

Irvine Welsh book Trainspotting

Renton, "Relapsing: Cock Problems" (Chapter 2, Story 4).
Trainspotting (1993)

Billy Graham photo

“God has given us two hands--one to receive with and the other to give with. We are not cisterns made for hoarding; we are channels made for sharing.”

Billy Graham (1918–2018) American Christian evangelist

“One should go easy on smashing other people's lies. Better to concentrate on one's own.”

Iris Murdoch book Henry and Cato

Source: Henry and Cato

“Well, it's hard to tell on the basis of the Party's rhetoric, after all they're running for state office, but my experience is that most people who are in the Libertarian Party have pretty decent anarchist impulses, even if they do not say they are anarchists—most of them will say they are libertarians, at any rate.And one thing that is useful is that they have a fairly well-refined analysis of why they aren't conservative. It took the New Left to do a proper analysis on American liberals, it seems to me, and I suspect that the libertarians are doing the best analysis of American conservatives.I think that they are quite good people, and that the Party contains within it probably more people of an anarchist tendency than any other organisation in the country.”

Karl Hess (1923–1994) American journalist

Anarchism in America http://alexpeak.com/art/films/aia/ (15 January 1983)

William Graham Sumner photo

“Gentlemen, the time is coming when there will be two great classes, Socialists, and Anarchists. The Anarchists want the government to be nothing, and the Socialists want government to be everything. There can be no greater contrast. Well, the time will come when there will be only these two great parties, the Anarchists representing the laissez faire doctrine and the Socialists representing the extreme view on the other side, and when that time comes I am an Anarchist.”

William Graham Sumner (1840–1910) American academic

per Irving Norton Fisher in a speech to the Yale socialists club 1911 http://praxeology.net/WGS-Anarchy.htm.

“T were vain to tell thee all I feel,
Or say for thee I'd die.
Ah, well-a-day, the sweetest melody
Could never, never say, one half my love for thee.”

J. Augustine Wade (1796–1845) Irish composer

T were vain to tell, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“An anarchist does not want to rule others and does not want others to rule him. Nothing is so despicable as half-an-anarchist.”

Frank Van Dun (1947) Belgian law philosopher

E-mail to LewRockwell.com http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/003291.html (2004-01-20).

Jacques Ellul photo

“On the other hand, it seems to me that an anarchist attitude is the only one that is sufficiently radical in the face of a general statist system.”

Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) French sociologist, technology critic, and Christian anarchist

Source: The Ethics of Freedom (1973 - 1974), p. 396
Context: No society can last in conditions of anarchy. This is self-evident and I am in full agreement. But my aim is not the establishment of an anarchist society or the total destruction of the state. Here I differ from anarchists. I do not believe that it is possible to destroy the modern state. It is pure imagination to think that some day this power will be overthrown. From a pragmatic standpoint there is no chance of success. Furthermore, I do not believe that anarchist doctrine is the solution to the problem of organization in society and government. I do not think that if anarchism were to succeed we should have a better or more livable society. Hence I am not fighting for the triumph of this doctrine.
On the other hand, it seems to me that an anarchist attitude is the only one that is sufficiently radical in the face of a general statist system.

Related topics