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Emma Goldman

Emma Goldman Quotes

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Famous Emma Goldman Quotes

“... the modern drama, operating through the double channel of dramatist and interpreter, affecting as it does both mind and heart,is the strongest force in developing social discontent, swelling the powerful tide of unrest that sweeps onward and over the dam of ignorance, prejudice, and superstition.”

MindHeartDoeForceSocialPowerfulModernIgnoranceDramaPrejudiceTheaterDevelopingStrongestTidesSuperstitionsHeart And MindDiscontentInterpreterUnrestDamsSwelling
Book:Anarchism: Top Crime Collections
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“Few countries have produced such arrogance and snobbishness as America. Particularly is this true of the American woman of the middle class. She not only considers herself the equal of man, but his superior, especially in her purity, goodness, and morality. Small wonder that the American suffragist claims for her vote the most miraculous powers. In her exalted conceit she does not see how truly enslaved she is, not so much by man, as by her own silly notions and traditions. Suffrage can not ameliorate that sad fact; it can only accentuate it, as indeed it does.”

MenDoeCountryFactsAmericaWonderClassMiddleMoralityEqualGoodnessTraditionVoteClaimsNotionSillySuperiorsArrogancePurityMiddle ClassCan NotMiraculousConceitExaltedSuffrageAmerican WomanAccentuateSuffragistsSnobbishness
Book:Anarchy and the Sex Question: Essays on Women and Emancipation, 1896–1926
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“Emancipation should make it possible for woman to be human in the truest sense. Everything within her that craves assertion and activity should reach its fullest expression; all artificial barriers should be broken, and the road towards greater freedom cleared of every trace of centuries of submission and slavery.”

ShouldHumansGreaterCenturyExpressionBrokenActivitySlaveryBarriersArtificialWomens RightsSubmissionCraveAssertionTruestEmancipation
Book:Emma Goldman
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“What is patriotism? Is it love of one's birthplace, the place of childhood's recollections and hopes, dreams and aspirations? Is it the place where, in childlike naïveté, we would watch the passing clouds, and wonder why we, too, could not float so swiftly? The place where we would count the milliard glittering stars, terror-stricken lest each one "an eye should be," piercing the very depths of our little souls?”

ShouldLittlesSoulDreamEyeStarsWonderWatchesChildhoodDepthCloudsTerrorPassingPassingsAspirationFloatsRecollectionChildlikePiercingsVetsBirthplaceDreams And AspirationsHopes Dreams
Book:Living My Life (Two Volumes in One)
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“So-called Individualism is the social and economic laissez-faire: the exploitation of the masses by the classes by means of legal trickery, spiritual debasement and systematic indoctrination of the servile spirit, which process is known as 'education'.”

MeanSpiritualSpiritSocialProcessKnownClassEconomicMassIndividualismExploitationSystematicIndoctrinationLaissez FaireTrickery
Book:Red Emma Speaks: An Emma Goldman Reader
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“Leo Tolstoy, the greatest anti-patriot of our time, defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers; a trade that requires better equipment in the exercise of man-killing than the making of such necessities as shoes, clothing, and houses; a trade that guarantees better returns and greater glory than that of the honest workingman.”

MenHousePrinciplesGreaterHonestReturnExerciseGloryTrainingTradeKillingShoesOur TimeGuaranteesJustifyClothingsPatriotEquipmentMurdererWholesaleAnti Patriotism
Book:Living My Life
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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.”

MeanIdeasRealFormValuesConditionsTransformationInstitutionsRussiaSubstancePermanentProvenSuperficialBetterment
Book:My Disillusionment in Russia
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“The Christian religion and morality extols the glory of the Hereafter, and therefore remains indifferent to the horrors of the earth. Indeed, the idea of self-denial and of all that makes for pain and sorrow is its test of human worth, its passport to the entry into heaven.”

HumansIdeasSelfEarthChristianPainHeavenMoralitySorrowHorrorGloryTestsRemainsDenialIndifferentWorth ItHereafterEntryPassportsSelf-denialPain And Sorrow
Book:Victims of Morality, and The Failure of Christianity: Two Lectures
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“The dominant, almost general, idea of revolution - particularly the Socialist idea - is that revolution is a violent change of social conditions through which one social class, the working class, becomes dominant over another class, the capitalist class. It is the conception of a purely physical change, and as such it involves only political scene shifting and institutional rearrangements”

IdeasPoliticalSocialClassConditionsRevolutionSceneViolentConceptionCapitalistSocialistDominantWorking ClassShiftingSocial ClassSocial Conditions
Book:Red Emma Speaks: An Emma Goldman Reader
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“The Fathers of the Church can well afford to preach the gospel of Christ. It contains nothing dangerous to the regime of authority and wealth; it stands for self-denial and self-abnegation, for penance and regret, and is absolutely inert in the face of every [in]dignity, every outrage imposed upon mankind.”

WellsSelfFacesFatherChristChurchWealthMankindDangerousRegretAuthorityDignityDenialRegimesOutrageSelf-denialPenanceAbnegation
Book:Red Emma Speaks: An Emma Goldman Reader
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“Today is the parent of tomorrow. The present casts its shadow far into the future. That is the law of life, individual and social. Revolution that divests itself of ethical values thereby lays the foundation of injustice, deceit, and oppression for the future society. The means used to prepare the future become its cornerstone.”

MeanTodayLawUsedValuesIndividualSocialParentRevolutionTomorrowShadowFoundationLaysInjusticeCastsOppressionDeceitEthicalCornerstonesLaws Of LifeSocial RevolutionEthical ValuesFuture Society
Author:Emma Goldman
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“We say that if America has entered the war to make the world safe for democracy, she must first make democracy safe in America. How else is the world to take America seriously, when democracy at home is daily being outraged, free speech suppressed, peaceable assemblies broken up by overbearing and brutal gangsters in uniform; when free press is curtailed and every independent opinion gagged? Verily, poor as we are in democracy, how can we give of it to the world?”

IfsWorldGivingFirstsWarHomeAmericaPoorOpinionDemocracyBrokenSafeSpeechIndependentPressesFree SpeechBrutalUniformsAssemblyGangstersOutragedBroken UpFree PressOverbearing
Author:Emma Goldman
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“With the conception that the Revolution was only a means of securing political power, it was inevitable that all revolutionary values should be subordinated to the needs of the Socialist State; indeed, exploited to further the security of the newly acquired governmental power.”

NeedsShouldMeanStatesPoliticalValuesSecurityRevolutionInevitableRevolutionaryConceptionSocialistPolitical PowerMental Power
Book:My Disillusionment in Russia
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“'Rugged individualism' has meant all the 'individualism' for the masters, while the people are regimented into a slave caste to serve a handful of self-seeking 'supermen.' America is perhaps the best representative of this kind of individualism, in whose name political tyranny and social oppression are defended and held up as virtues; while every aspiration and attempt of man to gain freedom and social opportunity to live is denounced as 'un-American' and evil in the name of that same individuality.”

PeopleMenKindSelfAmericaPoliticalEvilOpportunityNamesSocialVirtueMastersGainsSlaveIndividualitySeekingTyrannyOppressionAspirationIndividualismRepresentativesHandfulCastesRuggedRugged Individualism
Author:Emma Goldman
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“The philosophy of Atheism represents a concept of life without any metaphysical Beyond or Divine Regulator. It is the concept of an actual, real world with its liberating, expanding and beautifying possibilities, as against an unreal world, which, with its spirits, oracles, and mean contentment has kept humanity in helpless degradation.”

WorldMeanRealPhilosophySpiritHumanityAtheismPossibilityDivineConceptsAtheistPositive AtheismContentmentReal WorldAnarchyHelplessMetaphysicalExpandingLiberatingUnrealDegradationOraclesRegulatorsUnreal World
Book:Mother Earth Bulletin
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