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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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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
Mind
Easily
Things
Average
Parents
Inherited
Easier
Imitate
Teacher
Acquired
Parent
Conformity
Create
Teachers
Much
Content

More quotes by 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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Since every effort in our educational life seems to be directed toward making of the child a being foreign to itself, it must of necessity produce individuals foreign to one another, and in everlasting antagonism with each other.
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Only when human sorrows are turned into a toy with glaring colors will baby people become interested - for a while at least. The people are a very fickle baby that must have new toys every day.
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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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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 soldier's business is to take life. For that he is paid by the State, eulogized by political charlatans and upheld by public hysteria. But woman's function is to give life, yet neither the State nor politicians nor public opinion have ever made the slightest provision in return for the life woman has given.
Emma Goldman
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From infancy, almost, the average girl is told that marriage is her ultimate goal therefore her training and education must be directed toward that end. Like the mute beast fattened for slaughter, she is prepared for that.
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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Peter Kropotkin...was recognized by friend and foe as one of the greatest minds...of the nineteenth century...The lucidity and brilliance of his mind combined with his warm-heartednes s into the harmonious whole of a fascinating and gracious personality.
Emma Goldman
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If elections really changed anything, they would be outlawed.
Emma Goldman
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It cannot be sufficiently emphasized that revolution is in vain unless inspired by its ultimate ideal. Revolutionary methods must be in tune with revolutionary aims.
Emma Goldman
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Women need not always keep their mouths shut and their wombs open.
Emma Goldman
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Christ and his teachings are the embodiment of submission, of inertia, of the denial of life hence responsible for the things done in their name.
Emma Goldman
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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
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There is no such thing as a good government. There never was. There can't be.
Emma Goldman
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Let us not overlook vital things, because of the bulk of trifles confronting us.
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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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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No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy, the kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure.
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