Emma Goldman Quotes and Sayings - Page 1

“wealth means power: the power to subdue, to crush, to exploit, the power to enslave, to outrage, to degrade.”
-- Emma Goldman

#Crush #Mean #Wealth

“In modern capitalism economic exploitation rather than political oppression is the real enemy of the people.”
-- Emma Goldman

#Real #People #Political

“The soldier's business is to take life. For that he is paid by the State, eulogized by political charlatans and upheld by public hysteria. But woman's function is to give life, yet neither the State nor politicians nor public opinion have ever made the slightest provision in return for the life woman has given.”
-- Emma Goldman

#Hysteria #Giving #Political

“true emancipation ... will have to do away with the absurd notion of the dualism of the sexes, or that man and woman represent two antagonistic worlds.”
-- Emma Goldman

#Sex #Men #Two

“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

“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 #Betrayal #Children

“If not for the direct action of a John Brown and his comrades, America would still trade in the flesh of the black man.”
-- Emma Goldman

#Men #America #Black

“The people are urged to be patriotic ... by sacrificing their own children. Patriotism requires allegience to the flag, which means obedience and readiness to kill father, mother, brother, sister.”
-- Emma Goldman

#Mother #Brother #Children

“Politics is the reflex of the business and industrial world, the mottos of which are: 'To take is more blessed than to give'; 'buy cheap and sell dear'; 'one soiled hand washes the other.”
-- Emma Goldman

#Blessed #Hands #Giving

“Nowhere is woman treated according to the merit of her work, but rather as a sex. It is therefore almost inevitable that she should pay for her right to exist, to keep a position in whatever line, with sex favors. Thus it is merely a question of degree whether she sells herself to one man, in or out of marriage, or to many men!... The economic and social inferiority of woman is responsible for prostitution.”
-- Emma Goldman

#Sex #Men #Merit

“The most violent element in society is ignorance.”
-- Emma Goldman

#Peace #Educational #Book

“I'd rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck.”
-- Emma Goldman

#Life #Nature #Flower

“There's never been a good government.”
-- Emma Goldman

#Government #Liberty

“A practical scheme, says Oscar Wilde, is either one already in existence, or a scheme that could be carried out under the existing conditions; but it is exactly the existing conditions that one objects to, and any scheme that could accept these conditions is wrong and foolish.”
-- Emma Goldman

#Anarchy #Oscars #Foolish

“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

“‎Civilization has been a continuous struggle of the individual or of groups of individuals against the State and even against "society," that is, against the majority subdued and hypnotized by the State and State worship.”
-- Emma Goldman

#Struggle #Civilization #Majority

“No great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law. How can it be within the law? The law is stationary. The law is fixed. The law is a chariot wheel which binds us all regardless of conditions or place or time.”
-- Emma Goldman

#Law #Ideas #Wheels

“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 better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the 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

#Fighting #Intelligent #Iron

“If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.”
-- Emma Goldman

#Political #Voting #Nerd

“Someone has said that it requires less mental effort to condemn than to think.”
-- Emma Goldman

#Independent #Thinking #Effort

“To the moralist prostitution does not consist so much in the fact that the woman sells her body, but rather that she sells it out of wedlock.”
-- Emma Goldman

#Doe #Body #Facts

“Women need not always keep their mouths shut and their wombs open.”
-- Emma Goldman

#Atheism #Needs #Mouths

“What I believe is a process rather than a finality.”
-- Emma Goldman

#Believe #I Believe #Process

“If elections really changed anything, they would be outlawed.”
-- Emma Goldman

#Would Be #Election #Changed

“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

“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

“Even were the workers able to have their own representatives, for which our good Socialist politicians are clamoring, what chances are there for their honesty and good faith?”
-- Emma Goldman

#Honesty #Able #Anarchy

“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

“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

“Before we can forgive one another, we have to understand one another.”
-- Emma Goldman

#Inspirational #Forgiveness #Understanding