Emma Goldman Quotes

Quotes about:

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

  Emma Goldman

  Political, Voting, Nerd

  61 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

  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

  58 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

  14 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

  108 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”

  101 Copy quote

• When in the course of human development, existing institutions prove inadequate to the needs of man, when they serve merely to enslave, rob and oppress mankind, the people have the eternal right to rebel against, and overthrow, these institutions.

  Emma Goldman

  Men, People, Rebel

  Emma Goldman, Candace Falk (2008). “Emma Goldman”, p.450, University of Illinois Press

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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

  96 Copy quote

• In modern capitalism economic exploitation rather than political oppression is the real enemy of the people.

  Emma Goldman

  Real, People, Political

  Emma Goldman (2011). “Living My Life (Two Volumes in One)”, p.324, Cosimo, Inc.

  13 Copy quote

• John Burroughs has stated that experimental study of animals in captivity is absolutely useless. Their character, their habits, their appetites undergo a complete transformation when torn from their soil in field and forest. With human nature caged in a narrow space, whipped daily into submission, how can we speak of its potentialities?

  Emma Goldman

  Character, Animal, Space

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism: Top Crime Collections”, p.34, 谷月社

  14 Copy quote

• The benefits brought to the Russian people by Bolshevism exist only on paper painted in glowing colors by Bolshevist propaganda.

  Emma Goldman

  Color, Glowing, People

  4 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

  65 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

  22 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.

  57 Copy quote

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

  Emma Goldman

  Art, Reality, Desire

  27 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.

  12 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.

  9 Copy quote

• Public school - where the human mind is drilled and manipulated into submission to various social and moral spooks, and thus fitted to continue our system of exploitation and oppression.

  Emma Goldman

  School, Mind, Moral

  Emma Goldman, Candace Falk, Barry Pateman, Jessica M. Moran (2004). “Emma Goldman: Making speech free, 1902-1909”, p.238, Univ of California Press

  13 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

  17 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

  29 Copy quote

• You cannot build up a standing army and then throw it back into a box like tin soldiers. Armies equipped to the teeth with weapons, with highly developed instruments of murder and backed by their military interests, have their own dynamic functions.

  Emma Goldman

  Military, Army, Soldier

  Emma Goldman (1917*). “Preparedness, the road to universal slaughter”

  6 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

  53 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.

  91 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.

  22 Copy quote

• The demand for equal rights in every vocation of life is just and fair; but, after all, the most vital right is the right to love and be loved.

  Emma Goldman

  Life, Rights, Justice

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

  67 Copy quote

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