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I never expect men to give us liberty. No, women, we are not worth it until we take it.
Voltairine de Cleyre
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Voltairine de Cleyre
Age: 45 †
Born: 1866
Born: November 17
Died: 1912
Died: June 19
Anarchist
Essayist
Feminist
Journalist
Peace Activist
Philosopher
Poet
Writer
Leslie
Michigan
Never
Men
Expect
Worth
Liberty
Give
Women
Take
Giving
More quotes by Voltairine de Cleyre
The question of souls is old—we demand our bodies, now. We are tired of promises, god is deaf, and his church is our worst enemy.
Voltairine de Cleyre
As long as the working-people fold hands and pray the gods in Washington to give them work, so long they will not get it.
Voltairine de Cleyre
And sometimes when I am weary, When the path is thorny and Wild, I'll look back to the Eyes in the twilight, Back to the eyes that smiled. And pray that a wreath like a rainbow May slip from the beautiful past, And Crown me again with the sweet, strong love And keep me, and hold me fast.
Voltairine de Cleyre
Make no laws whatever concerning speech, and speech will be free so soon as you make a declaration on paper that speech shall be free, you will have a hundred lawyers proving that freedom does not mean abuse, nor liberty license, and they will define freedom out of existence.
Voltairine de Cleyre
Speak, speak, speak, & remember that whenever anyone's liberty to speak is denied, your liberty is denied also, & your place is where the attack is.
Voltairine de Cleyre
... it is better to study how to live rather than how to die ... it is better to have a religion of deeds rather than a religion of creeds ... it is better to work for humanity than for God.
Voltairine de Cleyre
What I say is, that the real non-resistants can believe in direct action only, never in political action. For the basis of all political action is coercion even when the State does good things, it finally rests on a club, a gun, or a prison, for its power to carry them through.
Voltairine de Cleyre
Government is as unreal, as intangible, as unapproachable as God. Try it, if you don't believe it. Seek through the legislative halls of America and find, if you can, the Government. In the end you will be doomed to confer with the agent, as before.
Voltairine de Cleyre
Socialism and Communism both demand a degree of joint effort and administration which would beget more regulation than is wholly consistent with ideal Anarchism Individualism and Mutualism, resting upon property, involve a development of the private policeman not at all compatible with my notion of freedom.
Voltairine de Cleyre
If the believers in liberty wish the principles of liberty taught, let them never intrust that instruction to any government for the nature of government is to become a thing apart, an institution existing for its own sake, preying upon the people, and teaching whatever will tend to keep it secure in its seat.
Voltairine de Cleyre
Capitalistic Anarchism ? Oh, yes, if you choose to call it so. Names are indifferent to me I am not afraid of bugaboos. Let it be so, then, capitalistic Anarchism.
Voltairine de Cleyre
There is one common struggle against those who have appropriated the earth, the money, and the machines.
Voltairine de Cleyre
The paramount question of the day is not political, is not religious, but is economic. The crying-out demand of today is for a circle of principles that shall forever make it impossible for one man to control another by controlling the means of his existence.
Voltairine de Cleyre
As to the American tradition of non-meddling, Anarchism asks that it be carried down to the individual himself.
Voltairine de Cleyre
I die, as I have lived, a free spirit, an Anarchist, owing no allegiance to rulers, heavenly or earthly.
Voltairine de Cleyre
There is no society for the prevention of cruelty to women.
Voltairine de Cleyre
If you choose the liberty and pride and strength of the single soul, and the free fraternization of men, as the purpose which your life is to make manifest then do not sell it for tinsel. Think that your soul is strong and will hold its way and slowly, through bitter struggle perhaps the strength will grow.
Voltairine de Cleyre
There is no peace now, and there will never be peace, so long as one rules over another.
Voltairine de Cleyre
Anarchism, to me, means not only the denial of authority, not only a new economy, but a revision of the principles of morality. It means the development of the individual as well as the assertion of the individual. It means self-responsibility, and not leader worship.
Voltairine de Cleyre
[The Catholic convent] had been like the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and there are white scars on my soul, where ignorance and superstition burnt me with their hell fire in those stifling days.
Voltairine de Cleyre
