Source: Anarcho-Syndicalism (1938), Ch. 5 "The Methods of Anarcho-Syndicalism"
Context: Political rights do not exist because they have been legally set down on a piece of paper, but only when they have become the ingrown habit of a people, and when any attempt to impair them will meet with the violent resistance of the populace. Where this is not the case, there is no help in any parliamentary Opposition or any Platonic appeals to the constitution. One compels respect from others when he knows how to defend his dignity as a human being. This is not only true in private life, it has always been the same in political life as well.
The peoples owe all the political rights and privileges which we enjoy today in greater or lesser measure, not to the good will of their governments, but to their own strength.
“If the lesser mind could measure the greater as a foot-rule can measure a pyramid, there would be finality in universal suffrage. As it is, the political problem remains unsolved.”
#16
1900s, Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
George Bernard Shaw 413
Irish playwright 1856–1950Related quotes
Equity.
Table Talk (1689)
“Women and fiction remain, so far as I am concerned, unsolved problems.”
Source: A Room of One's Own
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995), New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (1999)
citation needed
Attributed
“The scale we measure things by is the measure of our own mind.”
Der Maßstab, den wir an die Dinge legen, ist das Maß unseres eigenen Geistes.
Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 52.
Compassion: The Only Way to Peace (2007)
Profile of Yuri Knorozov http://cemyk.org/pages/en/yuri-knorosov.php
Speech in the House of Commons (Hansard, 10th November 1982, Col. 579).
1980s