Top 291 Quotes & Sayings by Emma Goldman

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.

When we can't dream any longer we die.

Idealists foolish enough to throw caution to the winds have advanced mankind and have enriched the world.

Direct action is the logical, consistent method of Anarchism.

The State is the altar of political freedom and, like the religious altar, it is maintained for the purpose of human sacrifice.

On rare occasions one does hear of a miraculous case of a married couple falling in love after marriage, but on close examination it will be found that it is a mere adjustment to the inevitable.

There is no hope even that woman, with her right to vote, will ever purify 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.

Heaven must be an awfully dull place if the poor in spirit live there.

Someone has said that it requires less mental effort to condemn than to think.

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.

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.

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?

Crime is naught but misdirected energy.

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.

If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution.

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.

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.

The most violent element in society is ignorance.

The motto should not be: Forgive one another; rather understand one another.

It is essential that we realize once and for all that man is much more of a sex creature than a moral creature. The former is inherent, the other is grafted on.

Anarchism is the great liberator of man from the phantoms that have held him captive; it is the arbiter and pacifier of the two forces for individual and social harmony.

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.

I'd rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck.

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.

No real social change has ever been brought about without a revolution... revolution is but thought carried into action.

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.

Woman, essentially a purist, is naturally bigoted and relentless in her effort to make others as good as she thinks they ought to be.

One cannot be too extreme in dealing with social ills; the extreme thing is generally the true thing.

Prostitution, although hounded, imprisoned, and chained, is nevertheless the greatest triumph of Puritanism.

To the indefinite, uncertain mind of the American radical the most contradictory ideas and methods are possible. The result is a sad chaos in the radical movement, a sort of intellectual hash, which has neither taste nor character.

Before we can forgive one another, we have to understand one another.

All claims of education notwithstanding, the pupil will accept only that which his mind craves.

The political arena leaves one no alternative, one must either be a dunce or a rogue.

Idealists are foolish enough to throw caution to the winds. They have advanced mankind and have enriched the world.

The most unpardonable sin in society is independence of thought.

Free love? as if love is anything but free. Man has bought brains, but all the millions in the world have failed to buy love.

Politics is the reflex of the business and industrial world.

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.

If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.

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.

Puritanism, in whatever expression, is a poisonous germ. On the surface everything may look strong and vigorous; yet the poison works its way persistently, until the entire fabric is doomed.

The individual whose vision encompasses the whole world often feels nowhere so hedged in and out of touch with his surroundings as in his native land.

Women need not always keep their mouths shut and their wombs open.

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.

Art is a part of the rebellion against the realities of its unfulfilled desire.

Revolution that divests itself of ethical values thereby lays the foundation of injustice, deceit, and oppression for the future society.

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.

A revolution without dancing is not a revolution worth having.

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.

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.

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.

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.

People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take.

"All government in essence," says Emerson, "is tyranny." It matters not whether it is government by divine right or majority rule. In every instance its aim is the absolute subordination of the individual.

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 labour 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.

Liberty will not descend to a people, a people must raise themselves to liberty...

The Christian religion and morality extols the glory of the Hereafter, and therefore remains indifferent to the horrors of the earth. Indeed, the idea of self-denial and of all that makes for pain and sorrow is its test of human worth, its passport to the entry into heaven.

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.

Out of the chaos, the future emerges in harmony and beauty.