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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

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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
Give
Fold
Giving
Folds
Work
Washington
Long
Gods
People
Pray
Praying
Working
Hands

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There is one common struggle against those who have appropriated the earth, the money, and the machines.
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A standing army is a standing menace to liberty.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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As to the American tradition of non-meddling, Anarchism asks that it be carried down to the individual himself.
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I die, as I have lived, a free spirit, an Anarchist, owing no allegiance to rulers, heavenly or earthly.
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... 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.
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A man won't steal, ordinarily, unless that which he steals is something he cannot as easily get without stealing in liberty the cost of stealing would involve greater difficulties than producing, and consequently he would not be apt to steal.
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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.
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I think it can be shown that the law makes ten criminals where it restrains one.
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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.
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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.
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There is no society for the prevention of cruelty to women.
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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.
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I never expect men to give us liberty. No, women, we are not worth it until we take it.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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