Bruno Filippi

If you are rebel geniuses as you claim, you should not replace Christian self-denial and patriotic servitude with the altruism of the anarchist who sacrifices himself for a future he will not see and this for people who do not comprehend you.

Bruno Filippi (March 30, 1900 – September 7, 1919) was an Italian individualist anarchist writer and activist.

Quotes

The Rebel’s Dark Laughter: The Writings of Bruno Filippi (1918)

Full text online

• You complain to each other about the war when you yourselves are its authors, and it continues because you put up with it! But I flee from your putridity that would sully me. Proudly alone, I break the chains that link me to you and separate myself from the pack of mangy dogs, submissive to the shepherd. I will wander the world alone carrying my hatred and scorn everywhere. Alone in struggle.
  • "The Free Art of a Free Spirit"

• Why should you care about the future? Why should you care about the progress of the people? Since you, who call yourselves anarchists, are sure to engage in a battle that is already lost for you before it has even started, since you will certainly not see the society of which you dream, and even if the people rebel, social conditions would not change for you and your rebellion would have to continue.

  So what’s the use of going down among a mass that cannot comprehend you since its conditions are such as to render you unintelligible to them? If you are rebel geniuses as you claim, you should not replace Christian self-denial and patriotic servitude with the altruism of the anarchist who sacrifices himself for a future he will not see and this for people who do not comprehend you.

  • "The Free Art of a Free Spirit"

• I, who have the strength and awareness to be my own motive force, will not be the little cog that is overwhelmed, annihilated by the heavy social gears.
  • "The Free Art of a Free Spirit"

• Rebel, because today society oppresses me and tries to prevent the free expression of my being, I use every weapon to fight it.
  • "The Free Art of a Free Spirit"

• You who are reading this can say that my prose is crazy, abnormal, as you have called my actions crazy and abnormal. But your judgment doesn’t interest me at all nor do I solicit it.
  • "The Free Art of a Free Spirit"

• I am destined to pass through this world, wandering like an invisible meteor. Precisely because I am superior, I will have to empty the entire cup of sorrow and distress with no joy to cheer me. But the harsh intoxication of drinking from the chalice of sorrow is a superb pleasure that only one who tears his soul to shreds by himself, with his own hands, is given to taste.
  • "The Free Art of a Free Spirit"

• I am gathering all the agony of the world together. Anyone who has a hidden worm gnawing away inside him, anyone dressed in mourning for the ideal, anyone who laughs scornfully at the ruin of the mind, may come. I need my sorrow to become a flood, a storm.
  • "The Federation of Sorrow"

• I am surrounded by a humanity that wants what everyone else wants. My isolated affirmation is a most serious crime.
  • "Il Me Faut Vivre Ma Vie"

• Cowardice, caressed by christianity, creates morality.
  • "Il Me Faut Vivre Ma Vie"

• I envy the savages. And I will cry to them in a loud voice: “Save yourselves, civilization is coming.”
  • "Il Me Faut Vivre Ma Vie"