Leadership Quote by Frederica Montseny

Rights, in Montseny's framing, are not freebies dispensed by a benevolent state; they are a collective achievement that can be squandered from the inside. The line sounds almost tautological at first glance - enjoy rights by being responsible - but its real move is political: it rewires rights away from pure entitlement and toward civic obligation. "We must create" is doing heavy lifting. Responsibility is not treated as a private virtue some people happen to possess; it's something societies cultivate through education, institutions, mutual aid, and daily norms. The verb implies construction, even discipline, not wishful thinking.

The subtext carries the tension of her era and ideology. As a Spanish anarchist and minister during the Second Republic and Civil War, Montseny was trapped in the classic revolutionary dilemma: how do you defend expansive freedoms in a moment when fear, chaos, and factionalism make people reach for strongmen, purges, or paternalistic control? Her answer is to insist that rights survive only when people are prepared to practice them. Freedom isn't just the absence of chains; it's a learned competence.

There's also a quiet rebuke to two camps at once. To conservatives who argue rights must be rationed because "the masses" can't handle them, she replies: then build capacity, don't curtail liberty. To radicals who treat rights as self-executing, she warns that without a culture of responsibility, rights collapse into grievance, loopholes, or license. The brilliance is its reciprocity: rights aren't merely protected by laws; they're protected by citizens who can be trusted with them.