"The benefits brought to the Russian people by Bolshevism exist only on paper painted in glowing colors by Bolshevist propaganda."
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Quote collection
Emma Goldman quotes (page 13 of 15)
288 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"I regard it as a tragedy that people of a differing sexual orientation find themselves proscribed in a world that has so little understanding for homosexuals and that displays such gross indifference for sexual gradations and variations and the great significance they have for living. It is completely foreign to me to wish to regard such people as less valuable, less moral, incapable of noble sentiments and behavior."
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"True emancipation begins neither at the polls nor in the courts. It begins in woman's soul."
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"The reward in heaven is the perpetual bait, a bait that has caught man in an iron net, a strait-jacket which does not let him expand or grow."
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"Understand one another."
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"Anarchism...stands for direct action, the open defiance of, and resistance to, all laws and restrictions, economic, social, and moral."
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"There can be no freedom in the large sense of the word, no harmonious development, so long as mercenary and commercial considerations play an important part in the determination of personal conduct."
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"Our institutions and conditions rest upon deep-seated ideas. To change those conditions and at the same time leave the underlying ideas and values intact means only a superficial transformation, one that cannot be permanent or bring real betterment. It is a change of form only, not of substance, as so tragically proven by Russia."
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"Success achieved by the most contemptible means cannot but destroy the soul. ... It helps to cover up the inner corruption and gradually dulls one's scruples, so that those who begin with some high ambition cannot, even if they would, create anything out of themselves."
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"readiness,' far far from assuring peace, has at all times and in all countries been instrumental in precipitating armed conflicts."
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"Nora leaves her husband, not-as the stupid critic would have it-because she is tired of her responsibilities or feels the need of woman's rights, but because she has come to know that for eight years she had lived with a stranger and borne him children. Can there be anything more humiliating, more degrading than a life-long proximity between two strangers? No need for the woman to know anything of the man, save his income. As to the knowledge of the woman-what is there to know except that she has a pleasing appearance?"
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"The conception of gods originated in fear and curiosity. Primitive man, unable to understand the phenomena of nature, and harassed by them, saw in every terrifying manifestation some sinister force expressly directed against him; and as ignorance and fear are the parents of all superstition, the troubled fancy of primitive man wove the God idea."
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"Predigested food' should be inscribed over every hall of learning as a warning to all who do not wish to lose their own personalities and their original sense of judgment."
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"It is significant that whenever the public mind is to be diverted from great social wrong, a crusade is inaugurated against indecency."
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"Modern woman is no longer satisfied to be the beloved of a man; she looks for understanding, comradeship; she wants to be treated as a human being and not simply as an object for sexual gratification."
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"You have opened up the prison gates of my womanhood. And all the passion that was unsatisfied in for me so many years, leaped into a wild reckless storm boundless as the sea."
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"... woman's narrow and purist attitude toward life makes her a greater danger to liberty wherever she has political power. Man haslong overcome the superstitions that still engulf women."
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"The worker who knows the cause of his misery, who understands the make-up of our iniquitous social and industrial system can do more for himself and his kind than Christ and the followers of Christ have ever done for humanity; certainly more than meek patience, ignorance, and submission have done."
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"Man has bought brains, but all the millions in the world have failed to buy love. Man has subdued bodies, but all the power on earth has been unable to subdue love. Man has conquered whole nations, but all his armies could not conquer love. Man has chained and fettered the spirit, but he has been utterly helpless before love. Thus love has the magic power to make of a beggar a king."
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"The average mind is slow in grasping a truth, but when the most thoroughly organized, centralized institution, maintained at an excessive national expense, has proven a complete social failure, the dullest must begin to question its right to exist. The time is past when we can be content with our social fabric merely because it is "ordained by divine right," or by the majesty of the law."
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