Quote

What I prized most was freedom, freedom to do my work, to give myself spontaneously and not out of duty or by command. I could not submit to such demands rather would I choose the path of a homeless wanderer yes, even go without love.

Emma Goldman

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Work
Duty
Wanderers
Would
Path
Spontaneously
Love
Rather
Homeless
Freedom
Submit
Give
Demands
Without
Command
Giving
Demand
Wanderer
Even
Choose
Prized

More quotes by Emma Goldman

Image
You have opened up the prison gates of my womanhood. And all the passion that was unsatisfied in for me so many years, leaped into a wild reckless storm boundless as the sea.
Emma Goldman
Image
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
Image
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.
Emma Goldman
Image
The majority represent a mass of cowards, willing to accept him who mirror its own soul and mind poverty.
Emma Goldman
Image
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
Image
The most violent element in society is ignorance.
Emma Goldman
Image
A revolution without dancing is not a revolution worth having.
Emma Goldman
Image
More pernicious than the power of a dictator is that of a class the most terrible - the tyranny of a majority.
Emma Goldman
Image
all government, whatever its forms or pretenses, is a dead weight that paralyzes the free spirit and activities of the masses.
Emma Goldman
Image
All claims of education notwithstanding, the pupil will accept only that which his mind craves.
Emma Goldman
Image
Yes, love is free it can dwell in no other atmosphere.
Emma Goldman
Image
... 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
Image
So-called Individualism is the social and economic laissez-faire: the exploitation of the masses by the classes by means of legal trickery, spiritual debasement and systematic indoctrination of the servile spirit, which process is known as 'education'.
Emma Goldman
Image
Free love? as if love is anything but free. Man has bought brains, but all the millions in the world have failed to buy love.
Emma Goldman
Image
Success achieved by the most contemptible means cannot but destroy the soul. ... It helps to cover up the inner corruption and gradually dulls one's scruples, so that those who begin with some high ambition cannot, even if they would, create anything out of themselves.
Emma Goldman
Image
Women need not always keep their mouths shut and their wombs open.
Emma Goldman
Image
Anarchism is the great liberator of man from the phantoms that have held him captive it is the arbiter and pacifier of the two forces for individual and social harmony.
Emma Goldman
Image
True, we have no conscription that is, men are not usually forced to enlist in the army, but we have developed a far more exacting and rigid force-necessity.
Emma Goldman
Image
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
Image
Patriotism ... is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and falsehoods a superstition that robs man of his self-respect and dignity, and increases his arrogance and conceit.
Emma Goldman