Peter Kropotkin

The unsociable species, on the contrary, are doomed to decay.

In the animal world we have seen that the vast majority of species live in societies, and that they find in association the best arms for the struggle for life: understood, of course, in its wide Darwinian sense — not as a struggle for the …

What if that knowledge — and only that — should become the possession of all? Would not science itself progress in leaps, and cause mankind to make strides in production, invention, and social creation, of which we are hardly in a …

Belief in an ice-cap reaching Middle Europe was at that time rank heresy

I began to appreciate the difference between acting on the principle of command and discipline and acting on the principle of common understanding. The former works admirably in a military parade, but it is worth nothing where real life is …

In short, we may say that the theory of Malthus, by shaping into a pseudo-scientific form the secret desires of the wealth-possessing classes, became the foundation of a whole system of practical philosophy, which permeates the minds of …

Political economy never rises above the hypothesis of a limited and insufficient supply of the necessities of life; it takes it for granted.

This postulate stands, undiscussed

Science, down to the present day, remains permeated with Malthus's teachings. Political economy continues to base its reasoning upon a tacit admission of the impossibility of rapidly increasing the productive powers of a nation

to this day the most advanced reformers entertain doubts as to the possibility of satisfying the needs of all

it deprived them of the very hope of improvement

He thus gave to the rich a kind of scientific argument against the ideas of equality; and we know that all dominion is based upon force, force itself begins to totter as soon as is no longer supported by a firm belief in its own …

the richer classes had become tired of their amateur excursions into the same domains, that Malthus came to assert, in reply to Godwin, that no equality is possible; that the poverty of the many is not due to institutions, but is a natural …

precisely when the ideas of equality and liberty, awakened by the French and American revolutions, were still permeating

in the minds of the wealth-possessing minority

Few books have exercised so pernicious an influence upon the general development of economic thought as Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population

We thus see that the over-population fallacy does not stand the very first attempt at submitting it to a closer examination.

it is utterly impossible to foresee at the present moment the limits as to the maximum number of human beings who could draw their means of subsistence from a given area of land, or as to what a variety of produce they could advantageously …

The resources of science, both in enlarging the circle of our production and in new discoveries, are inexhaustible. And each new branch of activity calls into existence more and more new branches, which steadily increase the power of man …

And we shall not be the worse for that.

the day is not far when we shall be compelled to look to our own resources

[L]et us not overrate the productivity of the exporting countries, and let us remember that the vinegrowers of Southern Europe drink themselves an abominable piquette; that s fabricates wine for home use out of dry raisins bought from …

a nourishing soil and a desired equal temperature of the air and the soil. All of his empirical art is devoted to the achievement of these two aims. But... the soil can be improved by hand, but it need not be made by hand. Any soil... can …

if we analyse their system, we see that its very essence is first, to create for the plant a nutritive and porous soil, which contains both the necessary decaying organic matter and the inorganic compounds; and then to keep that soil and …