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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

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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
Whatever
Beautiful
Government
Human
Asserts
Humans
Expresses
Believe
Spite
Indeed
Fine

More quotes by 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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No real social change has ever been brought about without a revolution... revolution is but thought carried into action.
Emma Goldman
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... if the production of any commodity necessitates the sacrifice of human life, society should do without that commodity, but itcan not do without that life.
Emma Goldman
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When primitive man heard thunder or saw the lightning, he could not account for either, and therefore concluded that back of them must be a force greater than himself. Similarly he saw a supernatural force in the rain, and in the various other changes in nature.
Emma Goldman
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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
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Understand one another.
Emma Goldman
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More pernicious than the power of a dictator is that of a class the most terrible - the tyranny of a majority.
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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The American suffrage movement has been, until very recently, altogether a parlor affair, absolutely detached from the economic needs of the people.
Emma Goldman
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Yes, love is free it can dwell in no other atmosphere.
Emma Goldman
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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
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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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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
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The more hideous the mental contortions, the greater the delight and bravos of the mass.
Emma Goldman
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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
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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.
Emma Goldman
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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.
Emma Goldman
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As to a thorough eradication of prostitution, nothing can accomplish that save a complete transvaluation of all accepted values--especially the moral ones--coupled with the abolition of industrial slavery.
Emma Goldman
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I want freedom, the right to self-expression , everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things.
Emma Goldman
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People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take.
Emma Goldman