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

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A revolution without dancing is not a revolution worth having.
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Mother Liberty caresses with generous affections...[those] who, armed with the weapons of high-minded honesty,...have grasped that the freedom of each is rooted in the freedom of all.
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The American suffrage movement has been, until very recently, altogether a parlor affair, absolutely detached from the economic needs of the people.
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Leo Tolstoy ... defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers.
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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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It is characteristic of theistic tolerance that no one really cares what the people believe in, just so they believe or pretend to believe.
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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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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.
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Every society has the criminals it deserves.
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Let us not overlook vital things, because of the bulk of trifles confronting us.
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readiness,' far far from assuring peace, has at all times and in all countries been instrumental in precipitating armed conflicts.
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The contention that a standing army and navy is the best security of peace is about as logical as the claim that the most peaceful citizen is he who goes about heavily armed.
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The majority represent a mass of cowards, willing to accept him who mirror its own soul and mind poverty.
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It is significant that whenever the public mind is to be diverted from great social wrong, a crusade is inaugurated against indecency.
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The government will ... go on in the highly democratic method of conscripting American manhood for European slaughter.
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the function of militarism is to kill. It cannot live except through murder.
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Jealousy is indeed a poor medium to secure love, but it is a secure medium to destroy one
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No great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law. How can it be within the law? The law is stationary. The law is fixed. The law is a chariot wheel which binds us all regardless of conditions or place or time.
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The pathos of it all is that the America which is to be protected by a huge military force is not the America of the people, but that of the privileged class.
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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.
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