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
Topics: Dignity
The most unpardonable sin in society is independence of thought.
—Emma Goldman
Topics: Independence
Only when human sorrows are turned into a toy with glaring colors will baby people become interested—for a while at least. The people are a very fickle baby that must have new toys every day.
—Emma Goldman
Topics: People
The political arena leaves one no alternative, one must either be a dunce or a rogue.
—Emma Goldman
Topics: Politicians, Politics
Merely external emancipation has made of the modern woman an artificial being. Now, woman is confronted with the necessity of emancipating herself from emancipation, if she really desires to be free.
—Emma Goldman
Topics: Women, Feminism
In taking out an insurance policy one pays for it in dollars and cents, always at liberty to discontinue payments. If, however, woman’s premium is a husband, she pays for it with her name, her privacy, her self-respect, her very life, “until death doth part.”
—Emma Goldman
Topics: Marriage
Politics is the reflex of the business and industrial world.
—Emma Goldman
Topics: Politicians, Politics
Patriotism … is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and falsehoods; a superstition that robs man of his self-respect and dignity, and increases his arrogance and conceit.
—Emma Goldman
Topics: Patriotism, Activism
Heaven must be an awfully dull place if the poor in spirit live there.
—Emma Goldman
Topics: Heaven
In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.
—Emma Goldman
Topics: Nationalism, Nationality, Nation, Nations
Indeed, the keynote of government is injustice. With the arrogance and self-sufficiency of the King who could do no wrong, governments ordain, judge, condemn, and punish the most insignificant offenses, while maintaining themselves by the greatest of all offenses, the annihilation of individual liberty.
—Emma Goldman
Topics: Government
People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take.
—Emma Goldman
Religion, the dominion of the human mind; Property, the dominion of human needs; and Government, the dominion of human conduct, represent the stronghold of man’s enslavement and all the horrors it entails.
—Emma Goldman
Topics: Property
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
Topics: Reason
Before we can forgive one another, we have to understand one another.
—Emma Goldman
Topics: Understanding
Idealists are foolish enough to throw caution to the winds. They have advanced mankind and have enriched the world.
—Emma Goldman
Topics: Ideals, Idealism
Every daring attempt to make a great change in existing conditions, every lofty vision of new possibilities for the human race, has been labeled Utopian.
—Emma Goldman
Topics: Paradise
Jealousy is indeed a poor medium to secure love, but it is a secure medium to destroy one’s self-respect. For jealous people, like dope-fiends, stoop to the lowest level and in the end inspire only disgust and loathing.
—Emma Goldman
Topics: Self Respect, Jealousy
Since every effort in our educational life seems to be directed toward making of the child a being foreign to itself, it must of necessity produce individuals foreign to one another, and in everlasting antagonism with each other.
—Emma Goldman
Topics: Education
Love, the strongest and deepest element in all life, the harbinger of hope, of joy, of ecstasy; love, the defier of all laws, of all conventions; love, the freest, the most powerful molder of human destiny; how can such an all-compelling force be synonymous with that poor little State and Church-begotten weed, marriage?
—Emma Goldman
Topics: Marriage
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
Topics: Humanity
Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy name!
—Emma Goldman
Topics: Humanity, Human Nature
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
Topics: Justice
I’d rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck.
—Emma Goldman
Topics: Flowers
Anarchism asserts the possibility of an organization without discipline, fear, or punishment, and without the pressure of poverty: a new social organism which will make an end to the terrible struggle for the means of existence,—the savage struggle which undermines the finest qualities in man, and ever widens the social abyss. In short, Anarchism strives towards a social organization which will establish well-being for all.
—Emma Goldman
The most violent element in society is ignorance.
—Emma Goldman
Topics: Ignorance
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
Topics: Mothers
The higher mental development of woman, the less possible it is for her to meet a congenial male who will see in her, not only sex, but also the human being, the friend, the comrade and strong individuality, who cannot and ought not lose a single trait of her character.
—Emma Goldman
Topics: Women
No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy, the kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure.
—Emma Goldman
Topics: Education, Kindness
When we can’t dream any longer, we die.
—Emma Goldman
Topics: Dreams, Forethought, Vision, Foresight
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Sheryl Sandberg American Executive, Author
- Susan Sontag American Writer, Philosopher
- Abbie Hoffman American Political Activist
- Howard Zinn American Historian, Activist
- Erica Jong American Novelist, Poet
- Murray Bookchin American Political Thinker
- Emma Lazarus American Poet, Writer
- Gertrude Stein American Writer
- Naomi Wolf American Feminist Writer
- Betty Friedan American Feminist, Author
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