1869-1940, American Anarchist
Anarchism is the only philosophy which brings to man the consciousness of himself; which maintains that God, the State, and society are non-existent, that their promises are null and void, since they can be fulfilled only through man's subordination. Anarchism is therefore the teacher of the unity of life; not merely in nature, but in man.
Emma Goldman – [Anarchism]
Before we can forgive one another, we have to understand one another.
Emma Goldman – [Understanding]
Crime is naught but misdirected energy.
Emma Goldman – [Crime and Criminals]
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 – [Utopia]
Heaven must be an awfully dull place if the poor in spirit live there.
Emma Goldman – [Heaven]
Idealists are foolish enough to throw caution to the winds. They have advanced mankind and have enriched the world.
Emma Goldman – [Ideals and Idealism]
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 – [Marriage]
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 – [Nations]
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.
Emma Goldman – [Sexuality]
It is safe to say that no other superstition is so detrimental to growth, so enervating and paralyzing to the minds and hearts of the people, as the superstition of Morality.
Emma Goldman – [Morality]
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 – [Jealousy]
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 – [Marriage]
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 – [Feminism]
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 – [Mothers]
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 – [Law and Lawyers]
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 – [People]
Politics is the reflex of the business and industrial world.
Emma Goldman – [Politicians and Politics]
Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy name!
Emma Goldman – [Human Nature]
Rather would I have the love songs of romantic ages, rather Don Juan and Madame Venus, rather an elopement by ladder and rope on a moonlight night, followed by the father's curse, mother's moans, and the moral comments of neighbors, than correctness and propriety measured by yardsticks.
Emma Goldman – [Romance and Romanticism]
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 – [Education]