Emma Goldman

Anarchist, Political Activist, Writer

Emma Goldman was a political activist and writer known for her advocacy of anarchism and women's rights, significantly influencing social movements in the early 20th century.

Born
June 27, 1869
Died
May 14, 1940
Quotes
288
Rank
#437

Quote collection

Emma Goldman quotes (page 14 of 15)

288 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.

Emma Goldman Anarchist, Political Activist, Writer
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"We Americans claim to be a peace-loving people. We hate bloodshed; we are opposed to violence. Yet we go into spasms of joy over the possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon helpless citizens. We are ready to hang, electrocute, or lynch anyone, who, from economic necessity, will risk his own life in the attempt upon that of some industrial magnate. Yet our hearts swell with pride at the thought that America is becoming the most powerful nation on earth, and that she will eventually plant her iron foot on the necks of all other nations. Such is the logic of patriotism."

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Emma Goldman Anarchist, Political Activist, Writer
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"True, the movement for woman's rights has broken many old fetters, but it has also forged new ones."

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"Mother Liberty caresses with generous affections...[those] who, armed with the weapons of high-minded honesty,...have grasped that the freedom of each is rooted in the freedom of all."

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Emma Goldman Anarchist, Political Activist, Writer
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"... if the production of any commodity necessitates the sacrifice of human life, society should do without that commodity, but itcan not do without that life."

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"The inherent tendency of the State is to concentrate, to narrow, and monopolize all social activities; the nature of revolution is, on the contrary, to grow, to broaden, and disseminate itself in ever-wider circles. In other words, the State is institutional and static; revolution is fluent, dynamic."

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"The demand for equal rights in every vocation of life is just and fair; but, after all, the most vital right is the right to love and to be loved. Indeed, if partial emancipation is to become a complete and true emancipation of woman, it will have to do away with the ridiculous notion that to be loved, to be sweetheart and mother, is synonymous with being slave or subordinate. It will have to do away with the absurd notion of the dualism of the sexes, or that man and woman represent two antagonistic worlds."

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"In the true sense one's native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home."

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Emma Goldman Anarchist, Political Activist, Writer
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"[Woman's] life-long economic parasitism has utterly blurred her conception of the meaning of equality."

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"Consciously or unconsciously, most theists see in gods and devils, heaven and hell, reward and punishment, a whip to lash the people into obedience, meekness and contentment.... The philosophy of atheism expresses the expansion and growth of the human mind. The philosophy of theism, if we can call it a philosophy, is static and fixed."

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"The government will ... go on in the highly democratic method of conscripting American manhood for European slaughter."

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"What's wrong with lust? You fancy your neighbor's husband so what are you supposed to do? Poke your eyes out so that you can't see him anymore? Acting on it is maybe a sin ... but my God, just lusting after someone? Is that so bad?"

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"... woman does not see what people of intellect perceived fifty years ago: that suffrage is an evil, that it has only helped to enslave people, that it has but closed their eyes that they may not see how craftily they were made to submit."

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"Do not all theists insist that there can be no morality, no justice, honesty or fidelity without the belief in a Divine Power? Based upon fear and hope, such morality has always been a vile product, imbued partiy with self-righteousness, partly with hypocrisy."

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"To call the State an organism shows a diseased tendency to make a fetish of words."

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"Yes, love is free; it can dwell in no other atmosphere."

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"When primitive man heard thunder or saw the lightning, he could not account for either, and therefore concluded that back of them must be a force greater than himself. Similarly he saw a supernatural force in the rain, and in the various other changes in nature."

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"The burden of all song and praise "unto the Highest" has been that God stands for justice and mercy. Yet injustice among men is ever on the increase; the outrages committed against the masses in this country alone would seem enough to overflow the very heavens. But where are the gods to make an end to all these horrors, these wrongs, this inhumanity to man? No, not the gods, but MAN must rise in his mighty wrath. He, deceived by all the deities, betrayed by their emissaries, he, himself, must undertake to usher in justice upon the earth."

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"Christ and his teachings are the embodiment of submission, of inertia, of the denial of life; hence responsible for the things done in their name."

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"The inhabitants of the other spots reason in like manner, of course, with the result that from early infancy the mind of the child is provided with blood-curdling stories about the Germans, the French, the Italians, Russians, etc."

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"Publishers, theatrical managers, and critics ask not for the quality inherent in creative art, but will it meet with a good sale, will it suit the palate of the people? Alas, this palate is like a dumping ground; it relishes anything that needs no mental mastication. As a result, the mediocre, the ordinary, the commonplace represents the chief literary output."

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