Emma Goldman Quotes

Quotes about:

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

  Emma Goldman

  Political, Voting, Nerd

  67 Copy quote

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

  Emma Goldman

  Want, Revolution, Can Not

  6 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

• 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

  63 Copy quote
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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

  114 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”

  104 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

  98 Copy quote

• To-day is the parent of to-morrow. The present casts its shadow far into the future.

  Emma Goldman

  Parent, Shadow, Morrow

  Emma Goldman (2003). “My Disillusionment in Russia”, p.262, Courier Corporation

  8 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

• 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

  71 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

• Order derived through submission and maintained by terror is not much of a safe guaranty; yet that is the only "order" that governments have ever maintained. True social harmony grows naturally out of solidarity of interests. In a society where those who always work never have anything, while those who never work enjoy everything, solidarity of interests is non-existent; hence social harmony is but a myth.... Thus the entire arsenal of governments - laws, police, soldiers, the courts, legislatures, prisons - is strenuously engaged in "harmonizing" the most antagonistic elements in society.

  Emma Goldman

  Government, Order, Law

  10 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

• 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

  24 Copy quote

• "All government in essence," says Emerson, "is tyranny." It matters not whether it is government by divine right or majority rule. In every instance its aim is the absolute subordination of the individual.

  Emma Goldman

  Government, Essence, Majority Rule

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism: Top Crime Collections”, p.31, 谷月社

  8 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.

  13 Copy quote

• wealth means power: the power to subdue, to crush, to exploit, the power to enslave, to outrage, to degrade.

  Emma Goldman

  Crush, Mean, Wealth

  Emma Goldman (1969). “Anarchism: And Other Essays”, p.54, Courier Corporation

  32 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

• The State, every government whatever its form, character or color - be it absolute or constitutional, monarchy or republic, Fascist, Nazi or bolshevik - is by its very nature conservative, static, intolerant of change and opposed to it.

  Emma Goldman

  Character, Government, Color

  Emma Goldman (1998). “Red Emma Speaks: An Emma Goldman Reader”

  32 Copy quote

• The State is the altar of political freedom and, like the religious altar, it is maintained for the purpose of human sacrifice.

  Emma Goldman

  Religious, Sacrifice, Political

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism: Top Crime Collections”, p.32, 谷月社

  30 Copy quote

• Anarchism stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion and liberation of the human body from the coercion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government. It stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals.

  Emma Goldman

  Government, Order, Mind

  56 Copy quote

• It is a tragedy, I feel, that people of a different sexual type are caught in a world which shows so little understanding for homosexuals and is so crassly indifferent to the various gradations and variations of gender and their great significance in life.

  Emma Goldman

  People, Understanding, Tragedy

  58 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

• The most vital right is the right to love and be loved.

  Emma Goldman

  Love, Gay Marriage, Human Rights

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism: Top Crime Collections”, p.126, 谷月社

  19 Copy quote

• Art is a part of the rebellion against the realities of its unfulfilled desire.

  Emma Goldman

  Art, Reality, Desire

  29 Copy quote

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