What is Property?

"I am, sir, as moved as you by the abuses you point out: but I have such a profound attachment to order, not that banal and meddlesome order for which police agents suffice, but for the majestic and imposing order of human societies, that I sometimes feel hindered by it from attacking certain abuses. I would like to strengthen with one hand every time I am forced to shake with the other. One must fear so much destroying fruit buds when one prunes an old tree! You know this better than anyone. You are a grave, learned man, a meditative spirit: you speak in sufficiently sharp terms about the fanatics of our time to reassure the most fearful imaginations regarding your intentions: but finally, you conclude with the abolition of property! You want to abolish the most energetic lever that moves human intelligence, you attack the paternal sentiment in its sweetest illusions, you stop with a word the formation of capital, and we are henceforth building on sand, instead of founding on granite. This is what I cannot admit, and it is for this reason that I criticized your book, so full of beautiful pages, so sparkling with verve and knowledge!

"I wish, sir, that my almost altered health would allow me to study with you, page by page, the memoir you did me the honor of addressing to me publicly and personally; I would have, I believe, very strong observations to submit to you. For the moment, I must limit myself to thanking you for the obliging terms in which you have been willing to speak of me. We both have the merit of sincerity: I must also have the merit of prudence. You know what deep malaise the working class is suffering from: I know how many noble hearts beat under these rough clothes, and I have an irresistible fraternal sympathy for these millions of good people who rise so early to work, to pay taxes, to constitute the strength of our country. I seek to serve them, to enlighten them, while others try to mislead them. You have not written directly for them. You have made two magnificent manifestos, the second more measured than the first; make a third, more measured than the second, and