Even back in the legendary days of Robin Hood, violence was justified once social conquest was recognized. It not only justifies the revolutionary, but also, at any rate to himself, the criminal. What is wealth but the accumulated thefts of the past? How did the titles and the ownership of land arise? Once it is appreciated that the accumulation of property is due to theft, but that the robbery goes back in time, it is hard for anyone to understand the argument of capitalist economics that robbery has to cease now. Why? Because the law says so. (From: Chapter 11: Violence and Terrorism, Page 118..)
...if the country were well governed he would not be out of office, and if it were ill-governed, he would escape punishment and disgrace. (From: Book 5, Chapter 1..)
...I cherish a lively, grateful, and exceedingly friendly feeling for a certain class of outcasts from society with whom I associated for some time. By this I mean various ex-convicts. (From: Chapter 9: Fellow Prisoners of Mine, Page 136..)
...as former convicts themselves, they possessed a sympathy and understanding no others could have for the sometimes morbid psychology of us unfortunates. (From: Chapter 9: Fellow Prisoners of Mine, Page 136..)
...in these kingdoms, to which he supposes himself to belong though he nevertheless throws off their laws, he is a "sinner" or "egoist." But it is only when he becomes a criminal against these kingdoms that he can throw off their dominion. (From: Part 1, Chapter II, Section 3, Sub-Section 3, Post....)
The state's behavior is violence, and it calls its violence "law"; that of the individual, "crime." Crime, then -- so the individual's violence is called; and only by crime does he overcome the state's violence when he thinks that the state is not above him, but he is above the state. (From: Part 2, Chapter II, Section 1..)
But you cannot talk egoistically with him, for you are not so great as a criminal, you -- commit no crime! You do not know that an ego who is his own cannot desist from being a criminal, that crime is his life. (From: Part 2, Chapter II, Section 1..)
In crime the egoist has hitherto asserted himself and mocked at the sacred; the break with the sacred, or rather of the sacred, may become general. A revolution never returns, but a mighty, reckless, shameless, conscienceless, proud -- crime, does it not rumble in distant thunders, and do you not see how the sky grows presciently silent and gloomy? (From: Part 2, Chapter II, Section 2..)
