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Emma Goldman

Emma Goldman Quotes

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Famous Emma Goldman Quotes

“In the struggle for supremacy the various political parties outdo each other in trickery, deceit, cunning, and shady machinations, confident that the one who succeeds is sure to be hailed by the majority as the victor. That is the only god--Success. As to what expense, what terrible cost to character, is of no moment.”

MomentsCharacterPoliticalPoliticsPartyStruggleTerribleCostSucceedMajorityVariousDeceitExpensesPolitical PartiesCunningSupremacyShadyTrickery
Book:Anarchism: Top Crime Collections
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“Men and women ... do you not realize that the State is the worst enemy you have? It is a machine that crushes you in order to sustain the ruling class, your masters. Like naïve children you put your trust in your political leaders. You make it possible for them to creep into your confidence, only to have them betray you to the first bidder. But even where there is no direct betrayal, the labour politicians make common cause with your enemies to keep you in leash, to prevent your direct action. The State is the pillar of capitalism, and it is ridiculous to expect any redress from it.”

MenFirstsChildrenStatesActionPoliticalOrderCausesRealizingCommonLeaderEnemyClassWorstMastersPoliticianMen And WomenCapitalismDirectMachinesBetrayalRidiculousCrushLabourBetrayRulingCreepsPillarsWorst EnemyPolitical LeadersLeashesRedressDirect Action
Author:Emma Goldman
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“Never can a new idea move within the law. It matters not whether that idea pertains to political and social changes or to any other domain of human thought and expression - to science, literature, music; in fact, everything that makes for freedom and joy and beauty must refuse to move within the law. How can it be otherwise? The law is stationary, fixed, mechanical, 'a chariot wheel' which grinds all alike without regard to time, place and condition, without ever taking into account cause and effect, without ever going into the complexity of the human soul.”

HumansIdeasSoulMatterFactsMovingLawPoliticalJoyLiteratureSocialCausesConditionsEffectsExpressionAccountsRegardRefuseFixedComplexityWheelsNew IdeasSocial ChangeDomainHuman SoulGrindCause And EffectHuman ThoughtChariotsStationary
Author:Emma Goldman
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“The soldier's business is to take life. For that he is paid by the State, eulogized by political charlatans and upheld by public hysteria. But woman's function is to give life, yet neither the State nor politicians nor public opinion have ever made the slightest provision in return for the life woman has given.”

GivingMadeStatesPoliticalGivenOpinionReturnPoliticianFunctionPaidSoldierPublic OpinionProvisionHysteriaCharlatans
Book:Anarchy and the Sex Question: Essays on Women and Emancipation, 1896–1926
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“It requires something more than personal experience to gain a philosophy or point of view from any specific event. It is the quality of our response to the event and our capacity to enter into the lives of others that help us to make their lives and experiences our own. In my own case my convictions have derived and developed from events in the lives of others as well as from my own experience. What I have seen meted out to others by authority and repression, economic and political, transcends anything I myself may have endured.”

WellsMayPhilosophyHelpingPoliticalMy OwnViewsQualityCasesEconomicEventsAuthorityGainsCapacityResponseConvictionPoint Of ViewRepressionPersonal ExperiencesLives Of Others
Book:Red Emma Speaks: An Emma Goldman Reader
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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.”

MenStillsPoliticalPoliticsAttitudeLibertyGreaterDangerOvercomingSuperstitionsPolitical PowerSuffrageWoman SuffragePower Man
Book:Anarchy and the Sex Question: Essays on Women and Emancipation, 1896–1926
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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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“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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“Men towering high above such political pygmies, men of refinement, of culture, of ability, are jeered into silence as mollycoddles. It is absurd to claim that ours is the era of individualism. Ours is merely a more poignant repetition of the phenomenon of all history: every effort for progress, for enlightenment, for science, for religious, political, and economic liberty, emanates from the minority, and not from the mass. Today, as ever, the few are misunderstood, hounded, imprisoned, tortured, and killed.”

MenTodayPoliticalCultureReligiousAbilityEffortSilenceLibertyProgressEconomicMassEnlightenmentClaimsAbsurdErasMinoritiesPhenomenonIndividualismRepetitionMisunderstoodRefinementPoignantEmanate
Book:Red Emma Speaks: An Emma Goldman Reader
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“Crime is naught but misdirected energy. So long as every institution of today, economic, political, social, and moral, conspires to misdirect human energy into wrong channels; so long as most people are out of place doing the things they hate to do, living a life they loathe to live, crime will be inevitable, and all the laws on the statutes can only increase, but never do away with, crime.”

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Book:Anarchism: Top Crime Collections
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“The political superstition is still holding sway over the hearts and minds of the masses, but the true lovers of liberty will have no more to do with it. Instead, they believe with Stirner that man has as much liberty as he is willing to take. Anarchism therefore stands for direct action, the open defiance of, and resistance to, all laws and restrictions, economic, social, and moral. But defiance and resistance are illegal. Therein lies the salvation of man. Everything illegal necessitates integrity, self-reliance and courage.”

MenMindBelieveHeartStillsSelfActionLawPoliticalLyingSocialLibertyMoralEconomicWillingLoversIntegrityMassDirectSalvationResistanceRevolutionaryIllegalSuperstitionsSelf RelianceHeart And MindRelianceRestrictionAnarchismDefianceTrue LoversDirect Action
Book:Anarchism: Top Crime Collections
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