Federica Montseny

“I wish to say that we Anarchists have never changed our position. We are Anarchists as of old and still pursue the same ideals.”

“But we must create in each person a sense of responsibility in order that each one of us can have the right to enjoy all his rights.”

“And we will accept the creation of the Iberian Federation of a socialist republic which will give each region the right to construct its life in accordance with its economic possibilities and political preponderance.”

“Men are as we have always known them, neither better nor worse from the hearts of rogues there springs a latent honesty, from the depths of honest men there emerges a brutish appetite - a thirst for extermination, a desire for blood.”

“There are Anarchists in other parts of the world who are unable to, comprehend the position of the Spanish Anarchists. I do not pretend to censor these Anarchists.”

“The struggle is so great that the triumph over fascism alone is worth the sacrifice of our lives.”

“We have confirmed something we only knew in theory, namely that revolution, in which uncontrolled and uncontrollable forces operate imperiously, is blind and destructive, grandiose and cruel.”

“Authority is something from which we are constantly subtracting, of which there remains always a residue, and which we attempt to make smaller and smaller.”

“We tried many times before to speed on the social revolution in Spain; attempted to stir up the feelings of the people and to raise the banner of Libertarian Communism.”

“Our constancy, same might call it our madness, was necessary to wear down the oppressive forces of the old democracy which, in Spain, was a hundred years behind the times.”

“We need no messiah and no sterile conception of a god menacing us with hell and purgatory.”

“The love of liberty and the sense of human dignity are the basic elements of the Anarchist creed.”

“In order to fully realise our aspirations, we must create in the masses of the people the sense of sacrifice and responsibility that has been the characteristic of the anarchist movement throughout its historic development in Spain.”

“Prostitution presents a moral, economic and social problem that cannot be resolved juridically.”

“Never will the Anarchists in Spain be made to suffer as they have been and are in Russia.”

“In Spain, we should have enough intelligence, enough sense of individual and collective responsibility to do for ourselves that which would be imposed upon us by a dictatorship.”

“If all our comrades of Europe, America and other countries, who do not understand what we are doing to Spanish Anarchism, would come to Spain, we could then see how they would react.”

“There is, therefore, no solution possible other than an economy directed by the workers through their organisations of control-through the workers' syndicates.”

“The people themselves, and only the people, determine the rhythm of our fight.”