Emma Goldman quotes - page 2

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)
The most unpardonable sin in society is independence of thought. View quote
Emma Goldman
Patriotism ... is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and falsehoods a superstition that robs man of his self-respect and dignity, and increases his arrogance and conceit. View quote
Emma Goldman
Women need not always keep their mouths shut and their wombs open. View quote
Emma Goldman
Politics is the reflex of the business and industrial world. View quote
Emma Goldman
The Fathers of the Church can well afford to preach the gospel of Christ. It contains nothing dangerous to the regime of authority and wealth; it stands for self-denial and self-abnegation, for penance and regret, and is absolutely inert in the face of every [in]dignity, every outrage imposed upon mankind. View quote
Emma Goldman
Crime is naught but misdirected energy. So long as every institution of today, economic, political, social, and moral, conspires to misdirect human energy into wrong channels; so long as most people are out of place doing the things they hate to do, living a life they loathe to live, crime will be inevitable, and all the laws on the statutes can only increase, but never do away with, crime. View quote
Emma Goldman
The spirit of militarism has already permeated all walks of life. Indeed, I am convinced that militarism is a greater danger here than anywhere else, because of the many bribes capitalism holds out to those whom it wishes to destroy. View quote
Emma Goldman
The custom of procuring abortions has reached such appalling proportions in America as to be beyond belief... So great is the misery of the working classes that seventeen abortions are committed in every one hundred pregnancies. View quote
Emma Goldman
One cannot be too extreme in dealing with social ills; the extreme thing is generally the true thing. View quote
Emma Goldman
Christianity is most admirably adapted to the training of slaves, to the perpetuation of a slave society; in short, to the very conditions confronting us today. The rulers of the earth have realized long ago what potent poison inheres in the Christian religion. That is the reason they foster it; that is why they leave nothing undone to instill it into the blood of the people. They know only too well that the subtleness of the Christian teachings is a more powerful protection against rebellion and discontent than the club or the gun. (Emma Goldman)
The God idea is growing more impersonal and nebulous in proportion as the human mind is learning to understand natural phenomena and in the degree that science progressively correlates human and social events. View quote
Emma Goldman
All claims of education notwithstanding, the pupil will accept only that which his mind craves. View quote
Emma Goldman
Woman, essentially a purist, is naturally bigoted and relentless in her effort to make others as good as she thinks they ought to be. View quote
Emma Goldman
No revolution can ever succeed as a factor of liberation unless the MEANS used to further it be identical in spirit and tendency with the PURPOSES to be achieved. Revolution is the negation of the existing, a violent protest against man's inhumanity to man with all the thousand and one slaveries it involves. It is the destroyer of dominant values upon which a complex system of injustice, oppression, and wrong has been built up by ignorance and brutality. It is the herald of NEW VALUES, ushering in a transformation of the basic relations of man to man, and of man to society. View quote
Emma Goldman
The higher mental development of woman, the less possible it is for her to meet a congenial male who will see in her, not only sex, but also the human being, the friend, the comrade and strong individuality, who cannot and ought not lose a single trait of her character. View quote
Emma Goldman
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. View quote
Emma Goldman
Only when human sorrows are turned into a toy with glaring colors will baby people become interested - for a while at least. The people are a very fickle baby that must have new toys every day. View quote
Emma Goldman
Direct action is the logical, consistent method of Anarchism. View quote
Emma Goldman
Prostitution, although hounded, imprisoned, and chained, is nevertheless the greatest triumph of Puritanism. View quote
Emma Goldman
Since every effort in our educational life seems to be directed toward making of the child a being foreign to itself, it must of necessity produce individuals foreign to one another, and in everlasting antagonism with each other. (Emma Goldman)
Nothing would prove more disastrous to our ideas, we contended, than to neglect the effect of the internal upon the external, of the psychological motives and needs upon existing institutions. View quote
Emma Goldman
Merely external emancipation has made of the modern woman an artificial being. Now, woman is confronted with the necessity of emancipating herself from emancipation, if she really desires to be free. View quote
Emma Goldman
If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution. View quote
Emma Goldman
Heaven must be an awfully dull place if the poor in spirit live there. View quote
Emma Goldman