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I do not believe in God, because I believe in man. Whatever his mistakes, man has for thousands of years been working to undo the botched job your god has made.

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
Men
Atheism
Mistake
Working
Whatever
Botched
Jobs
Undo
Made
Thousands
Believe
Atheist
Years
Mistakes

More quotes by Emma Goldman

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Conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the essentials of patriotism.
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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Understand one another.
Emma Goldman
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... woman's narrow and purist attitude toward life makes her a greater danger to liberty wherever she has political power. Man haslong overcome the superstitions that still engulf women.
Emma Goldman
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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
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The reward in heaven is the perpetual bait, a bait that has caught man in an iron net, a strait-jacket which does not let him expand or grow.
Emma Goldman
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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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No real social change has ever been brought about without a revolution... revolution is but thought carried into action.
Emma Goldman
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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
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If elections really changed anything, they would be outlawed.
Emma Goldman
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I don't care if a man's theory for tomorrow is correct, I care if his spirit of today is correct.
Emma Goldman
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The worker who knows the cause of his misery, who understands the make-up of our iniquitous social and industrial system can do more for himself and his kind than Christ and the followers of Christ have ever done for humanity certainly more than meek patience, ignorance, and submission have done.
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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Political violence is organized violence on the top which creates individual violence at the bottom.
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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What I believe is a process rather than a finality.
Emma Goldman
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The experience of every-day life fully proves that the armed individual is invariably anxious to try his strength. The same is historically true of governments. Really peaceful countries do not waste life and energy in war preparations, with the result that peace is maintained.
Emma Goldman
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Yes, authority, coercion, and dependence rest on the mass, but never freedom or the free unfoldment of the individual, never the birth of a free society. The Socialist demagogues know that as well as I, but they maintain the myth of the virtues of the majority, because their very scheme of life means the perpetuation of power.
Emma Goldman
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The majority represent a mass of cowards, willing to accept him who mirror its own soul and mind poverty.
Emma Goldman
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... the modern drama, operating through the double channel of dramatist and interpreter, affecting as it does both mind and heart,is the strongest force in developing social discontent, swelling the powerful tide of unrest that sweeps onward and over the dam of ignorance, prejudice, and superstition.
Emma Goldman