Emma Goldman was an anarchist political activist and writer. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the 20th century. Profoundly inspirational Emma Goldman quotes will encourage you to think a little deeper than you usually would and broaden your perspective.
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Famous Emma Goldman Quotes
The most violent element in society is ignorance. Emma Goldman
In modern capitalism economic exploitation rather than political oppression is the real enemy of the people. Emma Goldman
People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take. Emma Goldman
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 a 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
I demand the independence of woman, her right to support herself; to live for herself; to love whomever she pleases, or as many as she pleases. I demand freedom for both sexes, freedom of action, freedom in love and freedom in motherhood. Emma Goldman
John Burroughs has stated that experimental study of animals in captivity is absolutely useless. Their character, their habits, their appetites undergo a complete transformation when torn from their soil in field and forest. With human nature caged in a narrow space, whipped daily into submission, how can we speak of its potentialities? Emma Goldman
If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal. Emma Goldman
If not for the direct action of a John Brown and his comrades, America would still trade in the flesh of the black man. Emma Goldman
Conceit, arrogance and egotism are the essentials of patriotism Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot consider themselves nobler, better, grander, more intelligent than those living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others. Emma Goldman
The people are urged to be patriotic by sacrificing their own children. Patriotism requires allegiance to the flag, which means obedience and readiness to kill father, mother, brother, sister. Emma Goldman
I believe indeed, I know that whatever is fine and beautiful in the human body expresses and asserts itself in spite of the government, and not because of it. Emma Goldman
Politics is the reflection of the business and industrial world, the mottos of which are: ‘To take is more blessed than to give buy cheap and sell dear one soiled hand washes the other.
Men and women do you not realize that the State is the worst enemy you have? It is a machine that crushes you in order to sustain the ruling class, your masters. Like naïve children you put your trust in your political leaders. You make it possible for them to creep into your confidence, only to have them betray you to the first bidder. But even where there is no direct betrayal, the labor politicians make common cause with your enemies to keep you in leash, to prevent your direct action. The State is the pillar of capitalism, and it is ridiculous to expect any redress from it. Emma Goldman
Nowhere is a woman treated according to the merit of her work, but rather as a sex. It is therefore almost inevitable that she should pay for her right to exist, to keep a position in whatever line, with sex favors. Thus it is merely a question of degree whether she sells herself to one man, in or out of marriage, or to many men The economic and social inferiority of woman is responsible for prostitution. Emma Goldman
The most unpardonable sin in society is independence of thought. Emma Goldman
The most violent element in society is ignorance. Emma Goldman
Anarchism stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion and liberation of the human body from the coercion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government. It stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals. Emma Goldman
I’d rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck. Emma Goldman
Some people never seem to learn from experience. No matter how often they had seen the lion devour the lamb, they continued to cling to the hope that the nature of the beast might change. If only the lion could get to know the lamb better, they argued, or talk matters over Emma Goldman
There’s never been a good government. Emma Goldman
The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man’s right to his body, or woman’s right to her soul. Emma Goldman
The demand for equal rights in every vocation of life is just and fair; but, after all, the most vital right is the right to love and be loved. Emma Goldman
A revolution without dancing is not a revolution worth having. Emma Goldman
No great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law. How can it be within the law? The law is stationary. The law is fixed. The law is a chariot wheel which binds us all regardless of conditions or place or time. Emma Goldman
Art is a part of the rebellion against the realities of its unfulfilled desire. Emma Goldman
If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal. Emma Goldman
Ask for work. If they don’t give you work, ask for bread. If they do not give you work or bread, then take bread. Emma Goldman
Someone has said that it requires less mental effort to condemn than to think. Emma Goldman
Ask for work. If they don’t give you work, ask for bread. If they do not give you work or bread, then take bread. Emma Goldman
To the moralist prostitution does not consist so much in the fact that the woman sells her body, but rather that she sells it out of wedlock. Emma Goldman
The State, every government whatever its form, character or color be it absolute or constitutional, monarchy or republic, Fascist, Nazi or bolshevik is by its very nature conservative, static, intolerant of change and opposed to it. Emma Goldman
Women need not always keep their mouths shut and their wombs open. Emma Goldman
Out of the chaos, the future emerges in harmony and beauty. Emma Goldman
If elections really changed anything, they would be outlawed. Emma Goldman
Revolution is indeed a violent process. But if it is to result only in a change of dictatorship, in a shifting of names and political personalities, then it is hardly worthwhile. Emma Goldman
I demand the independence of woman, her right to support herself; to live for herself; to love whomever she pleases, or as many as she pleases. I demand freedom for both sexes, freedom of action, freedom in love and freedom in motherhood.
If love does not know how to give and take without restrictions, it is not love, but a transaction that never fails to lay stress on a plus and a minus. Emma Goldman
Even were the workers able to have their own representatives, for which our good Socialist politicians are clamoring, what chances are there for their honesty and good faith? Emma Goldman
The majority cannot reason; it has no judgment. It has always placed its destiny in the hands of others; it has followed its leaders even into destruction. The mass has always opposed, condemned, and hounded the innovator, the pioneer of a new truth. Emma Goldman
The ultimate end of all revolutionary social change is to establish the sanctity of human life, the dignity of man, the right of every human being to liberty and well being. Emma Goldman
Civilization has been a continuous struggle of the individual or of groups of individuals against the State and even against society, that is, against the majority subdued and hypnotized by the State and State worship. Emma Goldman
The most absurd apology for authority and law is that they serve to diminish crime. Aside from the fact that the State is itself the greatest criminal, breaking every written and natural law, stealing in the form of taxes, killing in the form of war and capital punishment, it has come to an absolute standstill in coping with crime. It has failed utterly to destroy or even minimize the horrible scourge of its own creation. Emma Goldman
Political violence is organized violence on the top which creates individual violence at the bottom. Emma Goldman
Before we can forgive one another, we have to understand one another. Emma Goldman
I do not believe in God, because I believe in man. Whatever his mistakes, man has for thousands of years been working to undo the botched job your god has made. Emma Goldman
The problem that confronts us today, and which the nearest future is to solve, is how to be one’s self and yet in oneness with others, to feel deeply with all human beings and still retain one’s own characteristic qualities. Emma Goldman
Rugged individualism’ has meant all the ‘individualism’ for the masters, while the people are regimented into a slave caste to serve a handful of self-seeking ‘supermen.’ America is perhaps the best representative of this kind of individualism, in whose name political tyranny and social oppression are defended and held up as virtues; while every aspiration and attempt of man to gain freedom and social opportunity to live is denounced as ‘un American’ and evil in the name of that same individuality. Emma Goldman
The inhabitants of the other spots reason in like manner, of course, with the result that from early infancy the mind of the child is provided with blood curdling stories about the Germans, the French, the Italians, Russians, etc. Emma Goldman
Women need not always keep their mouths shut and their wombs open. Emma Goldman
Even were the workers able to have their own representatives, for which our good Socialist politicians are clamoring, what chances are there for their honesty and good faith? Emma Goldman
What I believe’ is a process rather than a finality. Finalities are for gods and governments, not for the human intellect. Emma Goldman
The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weakness of human nature. Emma Goldman
The people are urged to be patriotic by sacrificing their own children. Patriotism requires allegiance to the flag, which means obedience and readiness to kill father, mother, brother, sister. Emma Goldman
The State is a term for the legislative and administrative machinery whereby certain business of the people is transacted, and badly so. Emma Goldman
Salvation lies in an energetic march onward towards a brighter and clearer future. Emma Goldman
I discovered that those who want their property to be respected, have an interest in preaching the existence of paradise and hell, and in keeping the people in ignorance. Emma Goldman
Someone has said that it requires less mental effort to condemn than to think. Emma Goldman
Morality and its victim, the mother what a terrible picture! Is there indeed anything more terrible, more criminal, than our glorified sacred function of motherhood? Emma Goldman
I’d rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck. Emma Goldman
