Quote

When I was a girl, the West was still young, and the law of force, of physical force, was dominant.

Agnes Smedley

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Agnes Smedley
Age: 58 †
Born: 1892
Born: February 23
Died: 1950
Died: May 6
Feminist
Journalist
Writer
Osgood
Missouri
Stills
Young
Still
Dominant
West
Physical
Law
Force
Girl

More quotes by Agnes Smedley

Image
Thousands of women are crushed and made inarticulate by that system and never develop as their natures would force them to develop were they in a decent environment.
Agnes Smedley
Image
So I had to be the doctor to these wounded men until we could remove them to the hospital. There were fifty-four women and forty little boys with the Red Army prisoners, and I went daily to take care of them also.
Agnes Smedley
Image
Like all my family and class, I considered it a sign of weakness to show affection to have been caught kissing my mother would have been a disgrace, and to have shown affection for my father would have been a disaster.
Agnes Smedley
Image
For the first week of the Sian events I was a first aid worker in the streets of Sian.
Agnes Smedley
Image
Much that we read of Russia is imagination and desire only.
Agnes Smedley
Image
I have no objection to a man being a man, however masculine that may be.
Agnes Smedley
Image
There are many men - such as those often to be found among the Indians - who are refined until they have qualities often attributed to the female sex. Yet they are men, and strong ones.
Agnes Smedley
Image
I believe only in money, not in love or tenderness. Love and tenderness meant only pain and suffering and defeat. I would not let it ruin me as it ruined others! I would speak only with money, hard money.
Agnes Smedley
Image
To die would have been beautiful. But I belong to those who do not die for the sake of beauty.
Agnes Smedley
Image
Gambling in the mark has been the great indoor sport of the capitalists for months, and consequently food has increased by 25 to 100 per cent.
Agnes Smedley
Image
My mother listened to all the news from the camp during the strike. She said little, especially when my father or the men who worked for him were about I remember her instinctive and unhesitating sympathy for the miners.
Agnes Smedley
Image
Professors could silence me then they had figures, diagrams, maps, books.... I was learning that books and diagrams can be evil things if they deaden the mind of man and make him blind or cynical before subjection of any kind.
Agnes Smedley
Image
I feel like a person living on the brink of a volcano crater.
Agnes Smedley
Image
But I see no reason why a woman should not grow and develop in all those outlets which are suited to her nature, it matters not at all what they may be.
Agnes Smedley
Image
More and more do I see that only a successful revolution in India can break England's back forever and free Europe itself. It is not a national question concerning India any longer it is purely international.
Agnes Smedley
Image
Subjection of any kind and in any place is beneath the dignity of man ... the highest joy is to fight by the side of those who for any reason of their own making or ours, are unable to develop to full human stature.
Agnes Smedley
Image
I have loved and bitterness left me for that hour. But there are times when love itself is bitter.
Agnes Smedley
Image
Everybody calls everybody a spy, secretly, in Russia, and everybody is under surveillance. You never feel safe.
Agnes Smedley
Image
I joined another circle and the leader gave us a little leaflet in very small print, asking us to read it carefully and then come prepared to ask questions. It was a technical Marxist subject and I did not understand it nor did I know what questions to ask.
Agnes Smedley
Image
There's something dreadfully decisive about a beheading.
Agnes Smedley