Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Emma Goldman

Quote by Emma Goldman

Work

Emma Goldman: Making speech free, 1902-1909

Emma Goldman: Making Speech Free, 1902-1909 delves into the pivotal years of Emma Goldman's career, highlighting her role in advocating for free speech and social justice. The book examines her influential activities, including her speeches, writings, and involvement in various movements of the time. more

Author

Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman

Emma Goldman was a prominent American writer, lecturer, and activist, known for her work in anarchism and feminism. Born on June 27, 1869, in Lithuania, she immigrated to the United States in her teens. Goldman's life was marked by her advocacy for workers' rights, free speech, and sexual liberation. She was a key figure in the American labor movement and the early 20th-century radical movement. Her influential writings and speaking engagements made her a leading voice in the fight for social and political change. She passed away on May 14, 1940. more

You May Also Like

“The difference between patriotism and nationalism is that the patriot is proud of his country for what it does, and the nationalist is proud of his country no matter what it does; the first attitude creates a feeling of responsibility, but the second a feeling of blind arrogance that leads to war.”

“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”

“That is a true sentiment which makes us feel that we do not love our country less, but more, because we have laid up in our minds the knowledge of other lands and other institutions and other races, and have had enkindled afresh within us the instinct of a common humanity, and of the universal beneficence of the Creator.”

“If patriotism is good, then Christianity, which gives peace, is an idle dream, and the sooner this teaching is eradicated, the better. But if Christianity really gives peace, and if we really want peace, then patriotism is a leftover from barbarous times, which must not only not be evoked and taught, as we now do, but which must be eradicated by all means of preaching, persuasion, contempt, and ridicule. If Christianity is the truth, and if we wish to live in peace, then we must not only have no sympathy for the power of our country, but must even rejoice in its weakening and contribute to it.”

“Our patriotism comes straight from the Romans. This is why French children are encouraged to seek inspiration for it in Corneille. It is a pagan virtue, if these two words are compatible. The word pagan, when applied to Rome, early possesses the significance charged with horror which the early Christian controversialists gave it. The Romans really were an atheistic and idolatrous people; not idolatrous with regard to images made of stone or bronze, but idolatrous with regard to themselves. It is this idolatry of self which they have bequeathed to us in the form of patriotism.”