The law has no claim to human respect. It has no civilizing mission; its only purpose is to protect exploitation.
Peter KropotkinRead
Man is appealed to be guided in his acts, not merely by love, which is always personal, or at best tribal, but by his perception of his oneness with each human being. In the practice of mutual aid, which we can re-trace to the earliest beginnings of evolution, we thus find the positive and undoubted origin of our ethical conceptions; and we can affirm that in the ethical progress of man, mutual support- not mutual struggle- has had the leading part.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the importance of mutual support and our interconnectedness as humans in guiding ethical actions.
Kropotkin argues that ethical behavior arises from our inherent sense of oneness with others, rather than from personal or tribal love. He suggests that throughout evolution, it has been mutual aid that has shaped our moral conceptions more than conflict, highlighting the significance of cooperation over competition in ethical progress.
Themes
Mutual AidEthicsSupportCooperationHuman Connection
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be shared during a community service event to inspire volunteers.
More from Peter Kropotkin
All quotes →Have not prisons - which kill all will and force of character in man, which enclose within their walls more vices than are met with on any other spot of the globe - always been universities of crime?
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When we ask for the abolition of the State and its organs we are always told that we dream of a society composed of men better than they are in reality. But no; a thousand times, no. All we ask is that men should not be made worse than they are, by such institutions!
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Everywhere you will find that the wealth of the wealthy springs from the poverty of the poor.
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No evolution is accomplished in nature without revolution. Periods of very slow changes are succeeded by periods of violent changes. Revolutions are as necessary for evolution as the slow changes which prepare them and succeed them.
Peter KropotkinRead
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