นักเขียนความเรียงชาวสกอตในสมัยวิกตอเรีย ทอมัส คาร์ไลล์ เขียนไว้ในงานเขียนประวัติศาสตร์ของเขา The French Revolution ว่าการปฏิวัติฝรั่งเศสเป็นสงครามต่อต้านอภิชนาธิปไตยและอนาธิปไตย:
"I shall now be a little more free and open with you than I was before. I wish we were all true-hearted, and that we did all carry ourselves with integrity. If I did mistrust you I would not use such asseverations. I think it doth go on mistrust, and things are thought too readily matters of reflection, that were never intended. For my part, as I think, you forgot something that was in my speech, and you do not only yourselves believe that some men believe that the government is never correct, but you hate all men that believe that. And, sir, to say because a man pleads that every man hath a voice by right of nature, that therefore it destroys by the same argument all property – this is to forget the Law of God. That there's a property, the Law of God says it; else why hath God made that law, Thou shalt not steal? I am a poor man, therefore I must be oppressed: if I have no interest in the kingdom, I must suffer by all their laws be they right or wrong. Nay thus: a gentleman lives in a country and hath three or four lordships, as some men have (God knows how they got them); and when a Parliament is called he must be a Parliament-man; and it may be he sees some poor men, they live near this man, he can crush them – I have known an invasion to make sure he hath turned the poor men out of doors; and I would fain know whether the potency of rich men do not this, and so keep them under the greatest tyranny that was ever thought of in the world. And therefore I think that to that it is fully answered: God hath set down that thing as to propriety with this law of his, Thou shalt not steal. And for my part I am against any such thought, and, as for yourselves, I wish you would not make the world believe that we are for anarchy."
"I know nothing but this, that they that are the most yielding have the greatest wisdom; but really, sir, this is not right as it should be. No man says that you have a mind to anarchy, but that the consequence of this rule tends to anarchy, must end in anarchy; for where is there any bound or limit set if you take away this limit, that men that have no interest but the interest of breathing shall have no voice in elections? Therefore, I am confident on’t, we should not be so hot one with another."
"For the savage people in many places of America, except the government of small families, the concord whereof dependeth on natural lust, have no government at all, and live at this day in that brutish manner"
"The first maketh men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third, for reputation"
"every man ought to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war"
"every man has a right to every thing, even to one another's body"
"that a man be willing, when others are so too ... to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himself"
"Meanwhile, we will hate Anarchy as Death, which it is; and the things worse than Anarchy shall be hated more. Surely Peace alone is fruitful. Anarchy is destruction: a burning up, say, of Shams and Insupportabilities; but which leaves Vacancy behind. Know this also, that out of a world of Unwise nothing but an Unwisdom can be made. Arrange it, Constitution-build it, sift it through Ballot-Boxes as thou wilt, it is and remains an Unwisdom,—the new prey of new quacks and unclean things, the latter end of it slightly better than the beginning. Who can bring a wise thing out of men unwise? Not one. And so Vacancy and general Abolition having come for this France, what can Anarchy do more? Let there be Order, were it under the Soldier’s Sword; let there be Peace, that the bounty of the Heavens be not spilt; that what of Wisdom they do send us bring fruit in its season!—It remains to be seen how the quellers of Sansculottism were themselves quelled, and sacred right of Insurrection was blown away by gunpowder: wherewith this singular eventful History called French Revolution ends."
"Qu'il me soit permis d'exprimer ici mon opinion personnelle: on ne m'accusera pas sans doute de ne point aimer la liberté; mais je sais que tous les mouvements des peuples ne conduisent pas à la liberté; mais je sais qu'une grande anarchie produit promptement une grande lassitude, et que le despotisme, qui est une espèce de repos, a presque toujours été le résultat nécessaire d'une grande anarchie. Il est donc bien plus important qu'on ne le pense de mettre fin aux désordres dont nous gémissons; et si on ne peut y parvenir qu'en rendant quelque activité à la force publique, il y a donc une véritable inconséquence à souffrir qu'elle demeure plus longtemps oisive."
"In The French Revolution, the narrative of increasing anarchy undermined the narrative in which the revolutionaries were striving to create a new social order by writing a constitution;"
"As to the Englishmen that came as mechanics hither, very young and have now acquired good estates in Sugar Plantations and Indigo & co., of course they know no better than what maxims they learn in the Country. To be now short & plain Your Lordship will see that they have no maxims of Church and State but what are absolutely anarchical."
"Must the King's good subjects at home who are as capable to begin plantations, as their Fathers, and themselves were, be excluded from their Liberty of settling Plantations in this noble Island, for ever and the King and Nation at home be deprived of so much riches, to make a few upstart Gentlemen Princes?"
Franks, Benjamin; Jun, Nathan; Williams, Leonard (2018). Anarchism: A Conceptual Approach. Milton Park: Taylor & Francis. p.104. ISBN978-1-317-40681-5. Anarchism can be defined in terms of a rejection of hierarchies, such as capitalism, racism or sexism, a social view of freedom in which access to material resources and liberty of others as prerequisites to personal freedom... .
Gowdy, John M. (1998). Limited Wants, Unlimited Means: A Reader on Hunter-Gatherer Economics and the Environment. St Louis: Island Press. p.342. ISBN1-55963-555-X.
Eckstein, Arthur M.; และคณะ (8 กันยายน 2020). "Anarchy". Encyclopedia Britannica Online. เก็บจากแหล่งเดิมเมื่อ 26 มีนาคม 2023. สืบค้นเมื่อ 16 กันยายน 2020. the absence of any authority superior to nation-states and capable of arbitrating their disputes and enforcing international law.
Woodcock, George. "Anarchism". The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. [Anarchism], a social philosophy that rejects authoritarian government and maintains that voluntary institutions are best suited to express man's natural social tendencies.
Kropotkin, Pëtr (1910). "Anarchism". Encyclopædia Britannica. เก็บจากแหล่งเดิมเมื่อ 5 มกราคม 2023. In a society developed on these lines, the voluntary associations which already now begin to cover all the fields of human activity would take a still greater extension so as to substitute themselves for the state in all its functions.
Suissa, Judith (2006). Anarchism and Education: a Philosophical Perspective. New York: Routledge. p.7. as many anarchists have stressed, it is not government as such that they find objectionable, but the hierarchical forms of government associated with the nation state
Kropotkin, Pëtr (1898). "Anarchism: its philosophy and ideal". คลังข้อมูลเก่าเก็บจากแหล่งเดิมเมื่อ 26 ธันวาคม 2022. That is why Anarchy, when it works to destroy authority in all its aspects, when it demands the abrogation of laws and the abolition of the mechanism that serves to impose them, when it refuses all hierarchical organisation and preaches free agreement – at the same time strives to maintain and enlarge the precious kernel of social customs without which no human or animal society can exist.
McKay, Lain; Elkin, Gary; Neal, Dave; Boraas, Ed (2009). "B.1 Why are anarchists against authority and hierarchy?". An Anarchist FAQ(PDF). p.297. เก็บ(PDF)จากแหล่งเดิมเมื่อ 31 มีนาคม 2022. anarchists are opposed to irrational (e.g., illegitimate) authority, in other words, hierarchy – hierarchy being the institutionalisation of authority within a society.
McLaughlin 2007, pp.28–166: "Anarchists do reject the state, as we will see. But to claim that this central aspect of anarchism is definitive is to sell anarchism short. ... [Opposition to the state] is (contrary to what many scholars believe) not definitive of anarchism."
Jun, Nathan (กันยายน 2009). "Anarchist Philosophy and Working Class Struggle: A Brief History and Commentary". WorkingUSA. 12 (3): 505–519. doi:10.1111/j.1743-4580.2009.00251.x. ISSN1089-7011. One common misconception, which has been rehearsed repeatedly by the few Anglo-American philosophers who have bothered to broach the topic ... is that anarchism can be defined solely in terms of opposition to states and governments (p. 507).
Franks, Benjamin (August 2013). "Anarchism". ใน Freeden, Michael; Stears, Marc (บ.ก.). The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies. Oxford University Press. pp.385–404. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199585977.013.0001. [M]any, questionably, regard anti-statism as the irremovable, universal principle at the core of anarchism. ... The fact that [anarchists and anarcho-capitalists] share a core concept of 'anti-statism', which is often advanced as ... a commonality between them ..., is insufficient to produce a shared identity ... because [they interpret] the concept of state-rejection ... differently despite the initial similarity in nomenclature (pp. 386–388).
"IAF principles". International of Anarchist Federations. คลังข้อมูลเก่าเก็บจากแหล่งเดิมเมื่อ 5 มกราคม 2012. The IAF–IFA fights for: the abolition of all forms of authority whether economical, political, social, religious, cultural or sexual.
McLaughlin 2007, p.1: "Authority is defined in terms of the right to exercise social control (as explored in the 'sociology of power') and the correlative duty to obey (as explored in the 'philosophy of practical reason'). Anarchism is distinguished, philosophically, by its scepticism towards such moral relations – by its questioning of the claims made for such normative power – and, practically, by its challenge to those 'authoritative' powers which cannot justify their claims and which are therefore deemed illegitimate or without moral foundation."
Brown, L. Susan (2002). "Anarchism as a Political Philosophy of Existential Individualism: Implications for Feminism". The Politics of Individualism: Liberalism, Liberal Feminism and Anarchism. Black Rose Books Ltd. Publishing. p.106. ISBN9781551642024.
Ireton, Henry; Calvin, John; Lilburne, John; Milton, John; และคณะ (1951) [1647–1649]. Clarke, W.; Woodhouse, A. S. P.; Lindsay, A. D. (บ.ก.). Puritanism and Liberty, being the Army Debates (1647-9). University of Chicago Press. p.59 – โดยทาง the Online Library of Liberty.
Harrington, James (1656). "PART I. THE PRELIMINARIES - Showing the Principles of Government". The Commonwealth of Oceana(html). Project Gutenberg. เก็บจากแหล่งเดิมเมื่อ 9 เมษายน 2023. If one man be sole landlord of a territory ... he is grand seignior; ... If the few or a nobility, or a nobility with the clergy, be landlords ... the empire is mixed monarchy ... . And if the whole people be landlords ... the empire (without the interposition of force) is a commonwealth. If force be interposed in any of these three cases, it must either frame the government to the foundation, or the foundation to the government; ... or if in the power of the people, anarchy: Each of which confusions, the balance standing otherwise, is but of short continuance, ...
Raic, D. (25 กันยายน 2002). Statehood and the Law of Self-Determination. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. p.69. ISBN90-411-1890-X. An example of a situation which features aspects of anarchy rather than civil war is the case of Albania after the outbreak of chaos in 1997.
Le Sage, Andre (1 มิถุนายน 2005). "Stateless Justice in Somalia"(PDF). Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue. คลังข้อมูลเก่าเก็บจากแหล่งเดิม(PDF)เมื่อ 18 มกราคม 2012. สืบค้นเมื่อ 26 มิถุนายน 2009.
Block, Walter (1999). "Review Essay"(PDF). The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics. 2 (3). สืบค้นเมื่อ 28 มกราคม 2010. But if we define anarchy as places without governments, and we define governments as the agencies with a legal right to impose violence on their subjects, then whatever else occurred in Haiti, Sudan, and Somalia, it wasn't anarchy. For there were well-organized gangs (e.g., governments) in each of these places, demanding tribute, and fighting others who made similar impositions. Absence of government means absence of government, whether well established ones, or fly-by-nights.