Working Translations
Joseph Leguépin, “Une sourdine / A Muzzle” (1916)
Joseph Leguépin, “Une sourdine,” Par delà la mêlée 1 no. 8 (25 mars 1916): 3. Working translation by Shawn P. Wilbur
Enzo Martucci, “Beyond All Morality” (1947)
Anarchy is neither moralism nor educationism, but free and unprejudiced satisfaction of all natural needs and feelings, permanent in time, even if they manifest themselves, with diverse degrees of intensity, under varied conditions and at various moments. […]
E. Armand, “La première impulsion / The First Impulse” (1916)
You reproach me for yielding too often to my first impulse — for treating as an adventure what is in reality only a banal event in my life; […]
Tomás Ibáñez, “Pourquoi j’ai choisi l’anarchie / Why I Have Chosen Anarchy” (1962)
If, among the wide range of ideas that have presented themselves to me, I have finally chosen the libertarian ideal, it is because, like every person on the planet, I am fundamentally egoistic. […]
Bakunin — Article for “Il popolo d’Italia” (1865)
A letter from Paris, published in your newspaper on September 2, contains a serious attack against a little paper by the name of Candide, written by young Parisians, whose publication was immediately interrupted by order of the imperial censor. Your correspondent, who does not seem to be an enthusiastic admirer of the illustrious exterminator of thought and freedom who reigns over France today, takes his side this time to the point of almost congratulating him on having avenged religion and public morals by suppressing a newspaper written by young people “uneducated or unexperienced, who, impelled by base culpable vanity, have dared to calmly affirm things that will sow eternal doubt in the minds of all decent people.” […]
E. Armand — misc. translations
To restrain the passions! To narrow the horizon of the enjoyment of living? Christianity has attempted it and failed. Socialism will try to reduce humanity to a similar denominator of necessities and it will fail. Fourier saw clearly when he coined this masterful expression: “the use of passions.” […]
Why I Am an Anarchist (Four Statements, 1885-1951)
I am an anarchist because I think with despair of all the poor kids who, every year, enter the great stupefying machine, who will never know the intoxication of a free and fraternal life, who will always tremble with the fear of ghosts. […]
Sylvain Maréchal, “Cult and Laws of a Society of Men without God” (1797)
CULTE ET LOIS D’UNE SOCIETE D’HOMMES SANS DIEU. L’an Ier de la Raison. VI de la République Française. EXTRAIT Du Discours prononcé par le Président du Conseil des Cinq-Cents, sur la fête du premier Vendémiaire, […]
Gabriel in “l’en dehors” (1922-1925)
— Pour faire réfléchir Parce qu’un littérateur, un philosophe, un savant s’expriment avec clarté et simplicité, de façon à être compris du plus grand nombre possible d’individus, il n’y à pas pour ça abaissement, […]