Quote

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

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

More quotes by 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
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
Image
After all, that is what laws are for, to be made and unmade.
Emma Goldman
Image
What I believe is a process rather than a finality.
Emma Goldman
Image
I believe - indeed, I know - that whatever is fine and beautiful in the human expresses and asserts itself in spite of government, and not because of it.
Emma Goldman
Image
Always, at every period, the few were the banner bearers of a great idea, of liberating effort. Not so the mass, the leaden weight of which does not let it move.
Emma Goldman
Image
Those who sit in a glass house do wrong to throw stones about them besides, the American glass house is rather thin, it will break easily, and the interior is anything but a gainly sight.
Emma Goldman
Image
We Americans claim to be a peace-loving people. We hate bloodshed we are opposed to violence. Yet we go into spasms of joy over the possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon helpless citizens.
Emma Goldman
Image
Patriotism is a menace to liberty.
Emma Goldman
Image
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
Image
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.
Emma Goldman
Image
Morality and its victim, the mother - what a terrible picture! Is there indeed anything more terrible, more criminal, than our glorified sacred function of motherhood?
Emma Goldman
Image
I don't care if a man's theory for tomorrow is correct, I care if his spirit of today is correct.
Emma Goldman
Image
The experience of every-day life fully proves that the armed individual is invariably anxious to try his strength. The same is historically true of governments. Really peaceful countries do not waste life and energy in war preparations, with the result that peace is maintained.
Emma Goldman
Image
Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy name! All wars are wars among thieves who are too cowardly to fight and who therefore induce the young manhood of the whole world to do the fighting for them.
Emma Goldman
Image
In taking out an insurance policy one pays for it in dollars and cents, always at liberty to discontinue payments. If, however, womans premium is a husband, she pays for it with her name, her privacy, her self-respect, her very life, until death doth part.
Emma Goldman
Image
Civilization has been a continuous struggle of the individual or of groups of individuals against the State and even against society, that is, against the majority subdued and hypnotized by the State and State worship.
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
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
Image
Puritanism, in whatever expression, is a poisonous germ. On the surface everything may look strong and vigorous yet the poison works its way persistently, until the entire fabric is doomed.
Emma Goldman