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all government, whatever its forms or pretenses, is a dead weight that paralyzes the free spirit and activities of the masses.

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
Dead
Paralyzes
Whatever
Pretense
Free
Masses
Spirit
Activities
Form
Forms
Government
Weight
Mass
Activity
Pretenses

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Conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the essentials of patriotism.
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Christianity is most admirably adapted to the training of slaves, to the perpetuation of a slave society.
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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.
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The inhabitants of the other spots reason in like manner, of course, with the result that from early infancy the mind of the child is provided with blood-curdling stories about the Germans, the French, the Italians, Russians, etc.
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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.
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Do not all theists insist that there can be no morality, no justice, honesty or fidelity without the belief in a Divine Power? Based upon fear and hope, such morality has always been a vile product, imbued partiy with self-righteousness, partly with hypocrisy.
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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.
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the function of militarism is to kill. It cannot live except through murder.
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The benefits brought to the Russian people by Bolshevism exist only on paper painted in glowing colors by Bolshevist propaganda.
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The State is a term for the legislative and administrative machinery whereby certain business of the people is transacted, and badly so.
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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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All claims of education notwithstanding, the pupil will accept only that which his mind craves.
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Political violence is organized violence on the top which creates individual violence at the bottom.
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There is no such thing as a good government. There never was. There can't be.
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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.
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Patriotism is a menace to liberty.
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To-day is the parent of to-morrow. The present casts its shadow far into the future.
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Art is a part of the rebellion against the realities of its unfulfilled desire.
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Whether our reformers admit it or not, the economic and social inferiority of women is responsible for prostitution.
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Let us not overlook vital things, because of the bulk of trifles confronting us.
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