Voltairine de Cleyre quotes - page 3

Those who, by the essence of their belief, are committed to Direct Action only are - just who? Why, the non-resistants; precisely those who do not believe in violence at all! (Voltairine de Cleyre)
An agent is usually held accountable to his principals. View quote
Voltairine de Cleyre
Ah, not to a blaze of light I go, Nor shouts of a triumph train; I go down to kiss the dregs of woe, And drink up the Cup of Pain. View quote
Voltairine de Cleyre
If you choose the liberty and pride and strength of the single soul, and the free fraternization of men, as the purpose which your life is to make manifest then do not sell it for tinsel. View quote
Voltairine de Cleyre
In the transition epoch, surely crimes will come. View quote
Voltairine de Cleyre
Government is as unreal, as intangible, as unapproachable as God. View quote
Voltairine de Cleyre
Humanity can not be made equal by declarations on paper. Unless the material conditions for equality exist, it is worse than mockery to pronounce men equal. View quote
Voltairine de Cleyre
For the way is not strown with petal soft, It is covered with hearts that weep, And the wounds I tread touch a deeper source Than you think it mine to keep. View quote
Voltairine de Cleyre
This is not a question of expediency, but of right. View quote
Voltairine de Cleyre
The love of material ease has been, in the mass of men and permanently speaking, always greater than the love of liberty. View quote
Voltairine de Cleyre
You will never get right until you start right. (Voltairine de Cleyre)
He looked, this obscenist looked with clear eyes into this ill-got thing you call morality, sealed with the seal of marriage, and saw in it the consummation of immorality, impurity, and injustice. View quote
Voltairine de Cleyre
Years! Years, ye shall mix with me! Ye shall grow a part Of the laughing Sea. View quote
Voltairine de Cleyre
This, then, is the tyranny of the State; it denies, to both woman and man, the right to earn a living, and grants it as a privilege to a favored few who for that favor must pay ninety per cent toll to the granters of it. View quote
Voltairine de Cleyre
Workers, the most absolutely necessary part of the whole social structure, without whose services none can either eat, or clothe, or shelter himself, are just the ones who get the least to eat, to wear, and to be housed withal. View quote
Voltairine de Cleyre
I would have men invest themselves with the dignity of an aim higher than the chase for wealth; choose a thing to do in life outside of the making of things, and keep it in mind, - not for a day, nor a year, but for a life-time. View quote
Voltairine de Cleyre
Now for the remedy. It is in one word, the only word that ever brought equity anywhere - LIBERTY! View quote
Voltairine de Cleyre
Let us have Men, Men who will say a word to their souls and keep it - keep it not when it is easy, but keep it when it is hard. View quote
Voltairine de Cleyre
Do not imagine that I speak of human life alone. The stamp of persistent or of shifting Will is visible in the grass-blade rooted in its clod of earth, as in the gossamer web of being that floats and swims far over our heads in the free world of air. Regnant ideas, everywhere! Did you ever see a dead vine bloom? I have seen it. View quote
Voltairine de Cleyre
Sometimes I dream of this social change. I get a streak of faith in Evolution, and the good in man. View quote
Voltairine de Cleyre
In the name of Purity what lies are told! What queer morality it has engendered. (Voltairine de Cleyre)
But something he will attain, if he continues to aim high. View quote
Voltairine de Cleyre
One is the struggle, and in One name - Manhood - we battle to set men free. "Uncurse us the Land!" burn the words of the Dead, Written-in-red. View quote
Voltairine de Cleyre
I have my ideal, and it is very pure, and very sacred to me. But yours, equally sacred, may be different and we may both be wrong. But certain am I that with free contract, that form of sexual association will survive which is best adapted to time and place, thus producing the highest evolution of the type. View quote
Voltairine de Cleyre
In that day there shall be neither kings nor Americans - only Men; over the whole earth, MEN. View quote
Voltairine de Cleyre