Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Doe
Carry
States
Prison
Coercion
Real
Finally
Rests
Even
Direct
Club
Believe
State
Clubs
Good
Action
Basis
Things
Political
Bases
Never
Power
Gun

More quotes by Voltairine de Cleyre

Image
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
Image
There is no peace now, and there will never be peace, so long as one rules over another.
Voltairine de Cleyre
Image
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
Image
A standing army is a standing menace to liberty.
Voltairine de Cleyre
Image
Private enterprise manages better all that to which it is equal. Anarchism declares that private enterprise, whether individual or cooperative, is equal to all the undertakings of society.
Voltairine de Cleyre
Image
[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
Image
There is one common struggle against those who have appropriated the earth, the money, and the machines.
Voltairine de Cleyre
Image
There is no society for the prevention of cruelty to women.
Voltairine de Cleyre
Image
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
Image
No one can hate petitions worse than I, and no one has less faith in them than I. But for my champion I am willing to try any means that invades no other's right, even though I have little hope in it.
Voltairine de Cleyre
Image
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
Image
I never expect men to give us liberty. No, women, we are not worth it until we take it.
Voltairine de Cleyre
Image
The revolution is ... the blow dealt ... agains the counter force of tyranny, which has never entirely recovered from the blow, but which from then till now has gone on remolding and regrappling the instruments of governmental power, that the Revolution sought to shape and hold as defenses of liberty.
Voltairine de Cleyre
Image
A right , in the abstract, is a fact it is not a thing to be given, established, or conferred it is. Of the exercise of a right power may deprive me of the right itself, never.
Voltairine de Cleyre
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Is it not enough that 'things are cruel and blind'? Must we also be cruel and blind?
Voltairine de Cleyre
Image
... 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
Image
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
Image
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