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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

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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
Even
Majority
Civilization
Groups
Struggle
Hypnotized
State
Subdued
Society
Continuous
Individual
Individuals
States
Worship

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No real social change has ever been brought about without a revolution... revolution is but thought carried into action.
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... nothing satisfies the craving of most women so much as scandal.
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Ask for work. If they don't give you work, ask for bread. If they do not give you work or bread, then take bread.
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A politician, he knows that the majority cares little for ideals or integrity. What it craves is display.
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How to raise this dead level of theistic belief is really a matter of life and death for all denominations. Therefore their tolerance but it is a tolerance not of understanding but of weakness.
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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
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Religion! How it dominates man's mind, how it humiliates and degrades his soul. God is everything, man is nothing, says religion.But out of that nothing God has created a kingdom so despotic, so tyrannical, so cruel, so terribly exacting that naught but gloom and tears and blood have ruled the world since gods began.
Emma Goldman
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We Americans claim to be a peace-loving people. We hate bloodshed we are opposed to violence. Yet we go into spasms of joy over the possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon helpless citizens.
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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.
Emma Goldman
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All claims of education notwithstanding, the pupil will accept only that which his mind craves.
Emma Goldman
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The most vital right is the right to love and be loved.
Emma Goldman
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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
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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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Poor America, of what avail is all her wealth, if the individuals comprising the nation are wretchedly poor? If they live in squalor, in filth, in crime, with hope and joy gone, a homeless, soulless army of human prey.
Emma Goldman
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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
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The majority cannot reason it has no judgement. It has always placed its destiny in the hands of others it has followed its leaders even into destruction. The mass has always opposed, condemned, and hounded the innovator, the pioneer of a new truth.
Emma Goldman
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How long would authority ... exist, if not for the willingness of the mass to become soldiers, policemen, jailers, and hangmen.
Emma Goldman
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The State has no more existence than gods and devils have. They are equally the reflex and creation of man, for man, the individual, is the only reality. The State is but the shadow of man, the shadow of his opaqueness, of his ignorance and fear.
Emma Goldman
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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.
Emma Goldman
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No, it is not because woman is lacking in responsibility, but because she has too much of the latter that she demands to know how to prevent conception.
Emma Goldman