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

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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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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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... 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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There is one common struggle against those who have appropriated the earth, the money, and the machines.
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[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.
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There is no society for the prevention of cruelty to women.
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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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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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I die, as I have lived, a free spirit, an Anarchist, owing no allegiance to rulers, heavenly or earthly.
Voltairine de Cleyre
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I think it can be shown that the law makes ten criminals where it restrains one.
Voltairine de Cleyre
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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
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As to the American tradition of non-meddling, Anarchism asks that it be carried down to the individual himself.
Voltairine de Cleyre
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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.
Voltairine de Cleyre
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Is it not enough that 'things are cruel and blind'? Must we also be cruel and blind?
Voltairine de Cleyre
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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
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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.
Voltairine de Cleyre
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A standing army is a standing menace to liberty.
Voltairine de Cleyre
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There is no peace now, and there will never be peace, so long as one rules over another.
Voltairine de Cleyre
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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.
Voltairine de Cleyre
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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