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The State is the altar of political freedom and, like the religious altar, it is maintained for the purpose of human sacrifice.

Emma Goldman

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Emma Goldman
Age: 70 †
Born: 1869
Born: June 27
Died: 1940
Died: May 14
Anarchist
Autobiographer
Feminist
Journalist
Lecturer
Nurse
Peace Activist
Philosopher
Political Activist
Political Philosopher
Publisher
Kovno
Humans
Sacrifice
Like
Religious
State
Purpose
Freedom
Political
Altar
States
Altars
Human
Maintained

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The State, every government whatever its form, character or color - be it absolute or constitutional, monarchy or republic, Fascist, Nazi or bolshevik - is by its very nature conservative, static, intolerant of change and opposed to it.
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The majority represent a mass of cowards, willing to accept him who mirror its own soul and mind poverty.
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Every society has the criminals it deserves.
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It is characteristic of theistic tolerance that no one really cares what the people believe in, just so they believe or pretend to believe.
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statutory regulations, legislative enactments, constitutional provisions, are invasive. They never yet induced man to do anything he could and would not do by virtue of his intellect or temperament, nor prevented anything that man was impelled to do by the same dictates.
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Pettiness separates breadth unites. Let us be broad and big.
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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.
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To-day is the parent of to-morrow. The present casts its shadow far into the future.
Emma Goldman
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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.
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Conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the essentials of patriotism.
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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.
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Our institutions and conditions rest upon deep-seated ideas. To change those conditions and at the same time leave the underlying ideas and values intact means only a superficial transformation, one that cannot be permanent or bring real betterment. It is a change of form only, not of substance, as so tragically proven by Russia.
Emma Goldman
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Whether our reformers admit it or not, the economic and social inferiority of women is responsible for prostitution.
Emma Goldman
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Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion.
Emma Goldman
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Perhaps even more than constituted authority, it is social uniformity and sameness that harass the individual most. His very uniqueness, separateness and differentiation make him an alien, not only in his native place, but even in his own home. Often more so than the foreign born who generally falls in with the established.
Emma Goldman
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Leo Tolstoy ... defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers.
Emma Goldman
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Anarchism is the only philosophy which brings to man the consciousness of himself which maintains that God, the State, and society are non-existent, that their promises are null and void, since they can be fulfilled only through man's subordination.
Emma Goldman
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Man must get back to himself before he can learn his relation to his fellows. Prometheus chained to the Rock of Ages is doomed to remain the prey of the vultures of darkness. Unbind Prometheus, and you dispel the night and its horrors.
Emma Goldman
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The more hideous the mental contortions, the greater the delight and bravos of the mass.
Emma Goldman
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Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy name! Every fool, from king to policeman, from the flatheaded parson to the visionless dabbler in science, presumes to speak authoritatively of human nature. The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of human nature.
Emma Goldman