“It is very difficult to understand proletarian violence as long as we try to think in terms of the ideas disseminated by bourgeois philosophy; according to this philosophy, violence is a relic of barbarism which is bound to disappear under the progress of enlightenment.”

—  Georges Sorel, book Reflections on Violence

Source: Reflections on Violence (1908), p. 65

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 17, 2024. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It is very difficult to understand proletarian violence as long as we try to think in terms of the ideas disseminated b…" by Georges Sorel?
Georges Sorel photo
Georges Sorel19
French philosopher and sociologist 1847–1922

Related quotes

Alfred Rosenberg photo

“A party philosopher who was interested in historical research and had no idea of the violence which his philosophy was inciting in the twentieth century.”

Alfred Rosenberg (1893–1946) German architect and politician

Robert H. Jackson [citation needed]

Immanuel Kant photo

“Law And Freedom without Violence (Anarchy)
Law And Violence without Freedom (Despotism)
Violence without Freedom And Law (Barbarism)
Violence with Freedom And Law (Republic)”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Georges Sorel photo

“Proletarian violence, carried on as a pure and simple manifestation of the sentiment of class struggle, appears thus as a very fine and heroic thing; it is at the service of the immemorial interests of civilization; it is not perhaps the most appropriate method of obtaining immediate material advantages, but it may save the world from barbarism.”

Georges Sorel book Reflections on Violence

Source: Reflections on Violence (1908), p. 85

David Cay Johnston photo

“Revenge is the philosophy of dictators and mob bosses... used to keep others in line with threats of economic ruin, violence, or worse.”

David Cay Johnston (1948) Investigative journalist and author

It's Even Worse Than You Think (2018)

Richard Pipes photo

“Marxism and Bolshevism, its offspring, were products of an era in European intellectual life that was obsessed with violence. No-one embraced this philosophy more enthusiastically than the Bolsheviks: ‘merciless’ violence, violence that strove for the destruction of every actual and potential opponent, was… the only way of dealing with problems.”

Richard Pipes (1923–2018) American historian

Source: Russia Under The Bolshevik Regime (1994), p. 500

“The worship of violence marks a reversion to barbarism for human civilization. This reversion happens most easily inside autocratic political systems, and the extent of the return to caveman impulses in in direct proportion to the barbarity of the autocracy within which it takes place: the more barbaric the dictatorship, the more devoutly the people will worship violence.”

Liu Xiaobo (1955–2017) Chinese literary critic, writer, professor, and human rights activist

"Bellicose and Thuggish: The Roots of Chinese "Patriotism" at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century" (2002)
No Enemies, No Hate: Selected Essays and Poems

Dante Alighieri photo

“Now the kind of philosophy under which we proceed in the whole and in the part is moral philosophy or ethics; because the whole was undertaken not for speculation but for practice.”
Genus vero philosophie, sub quo hic in toto et parte proceditur, est morale negotium, sive ethica; quia non ad speculandum, sed ad opus inventum est totum et pars.

Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) Italian poet

Letter to Can Grande (Epistle XIII, 40), as translated by Charles Latham in A Translation of Dante's Eleven Letters (1891), Letter XI, §16, p. 199.
Epistolae (Letters)

Charles Sanders Peirce photo

“The tendency to regard continuity, in the sense in which I shall define it, as an idea of prime importance in philosophy conveniently may be be termed synechism.”

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist

The Law of Mind (1892)
Context: The tendency to regard continuity, in the sense in which I shall define it, as an idea of prime importance in philosophy conveniently may be be termed synechism. The present paper is intended chiefly to show what synechism is, and what it leads to.

Anne Lamott photo

“The road to enlightenment is long and difficult, and you should try not to forget snacks and magazines.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

Camille Paglia photo

“We remain in the Romantic cycle initiated by Rousseau: liberal idealism canceled by violence, barbarism, disillusionment and cynicism.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 232

Related topics