Emma Goldman Quotes

Quotes about:

• If I can not dance, I want no part in your revolution.

  Emma Goldman

  Want, Revolution, Can Not

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  Emma Goldman

  Crush, Children, Betrayal

  65 Copy quote
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  People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take.

  Emma Goldman

  Independent, People, Independence

  Emma Goldman (1914). “The Social Significance of the Modern Drama”

  106 Copy quote

• If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.

  Emma Goldman

  Political, Voting, Nerd

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  The most violent element in society is ignorance.

  Emma Goldman

  Peace, Educational, Book

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism and Other Essays”, p.33, Sheba Blake Publishing

  115 Copy quote

• The most absurd apology for authority and law is that they serve to diminish crime. Aside from the fact that the State is itself the greatest criminal, breaking every written and natural law, stealing in the form of taxes, killing in the form of war and capital punishment, it has come to an absolute standstill in coping with crime. It has failed utterly to destroy or even minimize the horrible scourge of its own creation.

  Emma Goldman

  War, Apology, Law

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism: Top Crime Collections”, p.33, 谷月社

  75 Copy quote

• Some people never seem to learn from experience. No matter how often they had seen the lion devour the lamb, they continued to cling to the hope that the nature of the beast might change. If only the lion could get to know the lamb better, they argued, or talk matters over.

  Emma Goldman

  Power, Reality, Thinking

  Emma Goldman (2011). “Living My Life (Two Volumes in One)”, p.487, Cosimo, Inc.

  15 Copy quote
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  I demand the independence of woman, her right to support herself; to live for herself; to love whomever she pleases, or as many as she pleases. I demand freedom for both sexes, freedom of action, freedom in love and freedom in motherhood.

  Emma Goldman

  Sex, Motherhood, Support

  Emma Goldman, Candace Falk, Barry Pateman, Jessica M. Moran (2003). “Emma Goldman: Made for America, 1890-1901”, p.43, Univ of California Press

  100 Copy quote

• How long would authority ... exist, if not for the willingness of the mass to become soldiers, policemen, jailers, and hangmen.

  Emma Goldman

  Long, Soldier, Authority

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism: Top Crime Collections”, p.42, 谷月社

  25 Copy quote

• 'What I believe' is a process rather than a finality. Finalities are for gods and governments, not for the human intellect.

  Emma Goldman

  Believe, Government, Anarchy

  Emma Goldman, Candace Falk (2008). “Emma Goldman”, p.340, University of Illinois Press

  24 Copy quote

• Poor America, of what avail is all her wealth, if the individuals comprising the nation are wretchedly poor? If they live in squalor, in filth, in crime, with hope and joy gone, a homeless, soulless army of human prey.

  Emma Goldman

  Army, America, Joy

  8 Copy quote

• The ultimate end of all revolutionary social change is to establish the sanctity of human life, the dignity of man, the right of every human being to liberty and well-being.

  Emma Goldman

  Change, Men, Diversity

  Emma Goldman (2003). “My Disillusionment in Russia”, p.261, Courier Corporation

  35 Copy quote

• Idealists foolish enough to throw caution to the winds have advanced mankind and have enriched the world.

  Emma Goldman

  Wind, World, Foolish

  11 Copy quote

• Liberty will not descend to a people, a people must raise themselves to liberty...

  Emma Goldman

  People, Liberty, Raises

  "Lacon" by Emma Goldman, Vol. II; CLXXVIII, 1837.

  15 Copy quote

• Direct action against the authority in the shop, direct action against the authority of the law, direct action against the invasive, meddlesome authority of our moral code, is the logical, consistent method of Anarchism. Will it not lead to a revolution? Indeed, it will. No real social change has ever come without a revolution. People are either not familiar with their history, or they have not yet learned that revolution is but thought carried into action.

  Emma Goldman

  Real, Law, Direct Action

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism and Other Essays”, p.44, Sheba Blake Publishing

  6 Copy quote

• Patriotism is a menace to liberty.

  Emma Goldman

  Patriotism, Liberty, Menace

  8 Copy quote

• It is organized violence on top which creates individual violence at the bottom. It is the accumulated indignation against organized wrong, organized crime, organized injustice, which drives the political offender to act.

  Emma Goldman

  Political, Violence, Injustice

  Address to the Jury, delivered 9 July 1917, New York

  15 Copy quote

• They do not want to know that centralization is not only the death-knell of liberty, but also of health and beauty, of art and science, all these being impossible in a clock-like, mechanical atmosphere.

  Emma Goldman

  Art, Atmosphere, Liberty

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism: Top Crime Collections”, p.30, 谷月社

  7 Copy quote
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  A revolution without dancing is not a revolution worth having.

  Emma Goldman

  Dancing, Revolution

  "Living My Life". Book by Emma Goldman, 1931.

  60 Copy quote

• Indeed, the keynote of government is injustice. With the arrogance and self-sufficiency of the King who could do no wrong, governments ordain, judge, condemn, and punish the most insignificant offenses, while maintaining themselves by the greatest of all offenses, the annihilation of individual liberty.

  Emma Goldman

  Kings, Government, Self

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism and Other Essays”, p.38, Sheba Blake Publishing

  9 Copy quote

• Out of the chaos, the future emerges in harmony and beauty.

  Emma Goldman

  Future, Chaos, Harmony

  "Free speech, war: Berkeley beat goes on" by Roderick Nordell, www.csmonitor.com. January 16, 2003.

  10 Copy quote

• Peter Kropotkin...was recognized by friend and foe as one of the greatest minds...of the nineteenth century...The lucidity and brilliance of his mind combined with his warm-heartednes s into the harmonious whole of a fascinating and gracious personality.

  Emma Goldman

  Personality, Mind, Century

  4 Copy quote

• Politicians promise you heaven before election and give you hell after

  Emma Goldman

  Giving, Heaven, Promise

  Emma Goldman (2011). “Living My Life (Two Volumes in One)”, p.164, Cosimo, Inc.

  46 Copy quote

• Conceit, arrogance and egotism are the essentials of patriotism... Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot consider themselves nobler, better, grander, more intelligent than those living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others.

  Emma Goldman

  Patriotic, Fighting, Intelligent

  "What is Patriotism?". Emma Goldman's Speech in San Francisco, California, awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu. April 26, 1908.

  93 Copy quote

• '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.

  Emma Goldman

  Men, Opportunity, America

  "The Individual, Society and the State". Book by Emma Goldman (p. 112), 1937.

  28 Copy quote

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