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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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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
Long
Policemen
Would
Soldiers
Willingness
Soldier
Mass
Exist
Jailers
Authority
Hangman
Become
Jailer

More quotes by 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 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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ANARCHISM:The philosophy of a new social order based on liberty unrestricted by man-made law the theory that all forms of government rest on violence, and are therefore wrong and harmful, as well as unnecessary.
Emma Goldman
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Real wealth consists in things of utility and beauty, in things that help to create strong, beautiful bodies and surroundings inspiring to live in.
Emma Goldman
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Lack of fairness to an opponent is essentially a sign of weakness.
Emma Goldman
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Some people never seem to learn from experience. No matter how often they had seen the lion devour the lamb, they continued to cling to the hope that the nature of the beast might change. If only the lion could get to know the lamb better, they argued, or talk matters over.
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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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
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What I believe is a process rather than a finality.
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
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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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Anarchism...stands for direct action, the open defiance of, and resistance to, all laws and restrictions, economic, social, and moral.
Emma Goldman
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Predigested food' should be inscribed over every hall of learning as a warning to all who do not wish to lose their own personalities and their original sense of judgment.
Emma Goldman
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The government will ... go on in the highly democratic method of conscripting American manhood for European slaughter.
Emma Goldman
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It is organized violence on top which creates individual violence at the bottom. It is the accumulated indignation against organized wrong, organized crime, organized injustice, which drives the political offender to act.
Emma Goldman
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The most violent element in society is ignorance.
Emma Goldman
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Revolution that divests itself of ethical values thereby lays the foundation of injustice, deceit, and oppression for the future society.
Emma Goldman
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... woman does not see what people of intellect perceived fifty years ago: that suffrage is an evil, that it has only helped to enslave people, that it has but closed their eyes that they may not see how craftily they were made to submit.
Emma Goldman
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The average mind is easily content with inherited and acquired things, or with the dicta of parents and teachers, because it is much easier to imitate than to create.
Emma Goldman
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Anarchism aims to strip labor of its deadening, dulling aspect, of its gloom and compulsion. It aims to make work an instrument of joy, of strength, of color, of real harmony, so that the poorest sort of a man should find in work both recreation and hope.
Emma Goldman