To the Individualists, education was a condition precedent to any meaningful and sweeping societal change, educating being a knowledge and understanding of the reasons why individual rights and the law of equal liberty were necessary for a free society. “Revolution” in the sense of violent overthrow, then, was understood to be no true revolution at all, a mere reinitiating of the process and paradigm of political rulership. A free society, nonviolent and with equitable economic relations, could not function or hope to last where it was not the result of an organic process, necessarily slow as a process of sociological evolution. Their understanding that the changes they desired could emerge only from the awareness and the substitution of new principles informed the Individualists views on the propaganda of action that characterized other variants of anarchism (particularly communist anarchism). They regarded violent kinds of propaganda as not just fundamentally at odds with anarchist principles, which by definition oppose invasion, but also as retrograde steps that would set back real social change. Because it must come before change in the concrete realm of physical reality, the Individualists emphasized revolution of the mind; if the chains of State authority could be broken there, the rest would follow as a matter of course. Here are the Individualists in their own words... 

"These perplexed minds will easily solve their difficulties when they once assimilate the vital truth that the social revolution will not be accomplished in a day, and that the economic emancipation of the world can never be brought about by the methods which have been employed in political and religious struggles. Whatever trouble the mad folly and violent fury of the exploiters and tyrants, or the ignorance, passion, and despair of the victimized and starved slaves, may plunge us into, we must not be stayed in our work. Whether they will delay or hasten the true reformation of society is a question to be considered. But that reformation will be the result of a slow and gradual process of introducing and inaugurating new economic forces and elements which will tend to modify the existing relations and change the conditions of life. Revolutions may come and revolutions may go, but the work of enlightenment, of intelligent adaptation to surroundings, and of disseminating ideas of a happy life full of attractive labor and elevated thought remains forever." - Victor Yarros

"There is no need to kill an enemy to overcome him. This is the means that come only to the undeveloped, those who are still closely related to the gorilla. The highly developed say: 'Come away, comrades. We'll let him alone!' This kind of 'war' is comparatively new. It kills the evil spirit, but rejuvenates the soul. It beats the big guns into plows and other useful machinery. It preserves the work of the past—the cities, the farms, the works of art. The weapons in this war are more powerful, more far-reaching, more effective than all the munitions of a bloody conflict." - Joseph A. Labadie 

"If the diversion from these purposes, through political intrigue, agitation, and excitement, is to be deplored, far more is the insane thought that the interests of labor and social justice can be promoted by violence and bloodshed. Supposing such attempt possible of success, is the boycotter more capable of doing justice than the boycotted? Is the exclusive rule of a union any less arbitrary and despotic than the capitalist corporation? If Bourbon king is dethroned and beheaded by a successful revolution, who shall save us from the misrule of a Danton or Marat? Who will forecast the chances through which a Washington or even a Cromwell may be evolved from a carnival of blood?" - Joshua K. Ingalls

"[A]s an Egoist, the only morality I recognize is the highest expediency. So it would be highly immoral to attempt a revolution which would be foredoomed to failure. When a large minority have a clear idea of the nature of the State and an earnest desire to abolish it, such a revolution might be successful. But then it would be unnecessary, for people have refused to stand in the relation of subjects to it, the State would no longer be king." - Francis D. Tandy

"Though I should prove that my economic views, if realized, would turn our social system inside out, he would not therefore regard me as a revolutionist. He declares outright that I am no revolutionist, because the thought of the coming revolution (by dynamite, he means) makes my flesh creep. Well, I frankly confess that I take no pleasure in the thought of bloodshed and mutilation and death. At these things my feelings revolt. And if delight in them is a requisite of a revolutionist, then indeed I am no revolutionist. When revolutionist and cannibal become synonyms, count me out, if you please." - Benjamin R. Tucker

"The Anarchist does not want to destroy all existing institutions with a crash and then inaugurate the substituting process on their ruins. He simply asks to be let alone in substituting false systems now, so that they may gradually fall to pieces by their own dead weight. He asks the humble privilege of being allowed to set up a free bank in peaceable competition with the government subsidized class bank on the opposite corner. He asks the privilege of establishing a private post office in fair competition with the governmentally established one. He asks to be let alone in establishing his title to the soil by free occupation, cultivation, and use rather than by a title hampered by vested rights which were designed to keep the masses landless." - Henry Appleton

"That the masses hav occasionally participated in revolution is true. But the careful student of history, so confidently invokd by frend Holmes fails to find one in which the masses took activ part that yielded any permanent benefit. I agree with Holmes that by the trend of events they hav been forced to adopt the fruits of evolutionary and revolutionary progress. The great advances that have been made hav been gaind without the help, but often against the opposition of the masses. (The alluring flatteries of politicians, socialist and other, yielding them credit for any part of the forward movement that was not forcd on them, may be effectiv as bribes to win elections, but no revolution has ever been effected at the polls.)" - Herman Kuehn (Note: Kuehn often, as here, used a "reformed" spelling system)

"Anarchism is none of these things [a scheme of life, an explanation of the universe, a concrete intellectual system]. It teaches not violence, nor does it inculcate insurrection. Neither is it an incipient revolution. None the less has it its place in the life of our times. Modern Anarchism, in a word, is primarily a tendency—moral, social, and intellectual. As a tendency it questions the supremacy of the State, the infallibility of Statute laws, and the divine right of all Authority, spiritual or temporal. It is, in truth, a product of Authority, the progeny of the State, a direct consequence of the inadequacy of law and government to fulfill their assumed functions. In short, the Anarchist tendency is a necessity of progress, a protest against usurpation, privilege, and injustice." - William Bailie

"We must not be impatient. 'It takes a hundred years to make a gentleman.' It may take a thousand years to inaugurate Liberty among men, but, whether it takes a hundred or a thousand years, 'the house of bondage must be come up from.'" - Henry Bool 

"Our methods are methods of peace. Liberty is not the advocate of force. Speaking for itself, it hates murderous weapons of all descriptions. It enters into no planning, plotting, or dark and secret measures of assassination or revolution. . . . Liberty fights . . . with the ploughshare of thought and the lance of freest criticism, disbelieving in all other weapons—those that are death-dealing and not life-giving." - Benjamin R. Tucker 

"Anarchists as a rule know that fundamental social and economic changes come slowly, thru experiments and thought and necessity and patient toil and not by wars and violence and disorder and bloodshed; and so they do not expect the millenium to come at beck and call, by ballot or bluff, by bullet or bluster; but that societies grow more just and perfect if permitted, and that violence and disorder but retard symetrical growth as the vandal hatchet and violent storms maim and disfigure and retard even the most rugged tree. They do hope, however, to better human conditions by clearing away the rubbish injustice, letting the sun of righteousness shine on the dark places. They know that you must become an Anarchist before Anarchism can be; that you must have an intelligent desire to be free before timid freedom ventures within your reach—that freedom is only for those who want it; that you must realize your slavish conditions before slavery can be abolished; that you must comprehend your own degradation and servility before human dignity and self-respect can be yours; that you must know that you are being despoiled of the greater share of the results of your honest efforts before the despoilers will cease their spoliation; that you must have the knowledge, the will and the courage to take your own and leave what belongs to others before you will be fit to associate with those who love justice and hate wrong, who are wise enough to know their own rights and srong enough to refrain from aggressing another's security, who are clear enough of mental vision to distinguish friend from foe." - Joseph A. Labadie

"If only they could be made to understand that Anarchy does not mean a sudden overturning of the existing order of things, a compulsory substitution of chaos for injustice, a whirlwind of mad disorder; if only they would listen long enough to find out that Anarchy means a slow growth of the principles of liberty and justice; the gradual dropping off of the 'thou shalt's' and 'thou shalt not's' of laws and constitution as men slowly learn that it is better to be governed by reasonable and intelligent conviction from within than compulsion from without . . . ." - Benjamin R. Tucker

"Mutualists . . . believe in working toward the gradual elimination of the four great monopolies through a peaceful substitution of voluntary institutions for compulsory ones as an ever and ever greater measure of freedom is secured." - Clarence Lee Swartz