Emma Goldman
Lithuanian-born American anarchist writer and activist (1869 to 1940); author of Anarchism and Other Essays.
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What they believe
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Political conviction cannot be manufactured in people, only seeded
Anarchists or revolutionists can no more be made than musicians. All that can be done is to plant the seeds of thought.
gutenberg.orgSaid c. 1910This on korrents
The bold line is korrents’ wording; the quote is theirs. These one: what they wrote before what they said aloud, one per source, newest first.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 20 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
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Political conviction cannot be manufactured in people, only seeded
Anarchists or revolutionists can no more be made than musicians. All that can be done is to plant the seeds of thought.
Anarchism and Other Essays (1910) Said c. 1910
All forms of government rest on violence and are wrong, harmful and unnecessary
ANARCHISM:—The philosophy of a new social order based on liberty unrestricted by man-made law; the theory that all forms of government rest on violence, and are therefore wrong and harmful, as well as unnecessary.
Anarchism and Other Essays (1910) Said c. 1910
Freedom requires liberation from religion, property and government
Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government.
Anarchism and Other Essays (1910) Said c. 1910
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Direct action against workplace, legal and moral authority is the consistent anarchist method
Direct action against the authority in the shop, direct action against the authority of the law, direct action against the invasive, meddlesome authority of our moral code, is the logical, consistent method of Anarchism.
Anarchism and Other Essays (1910) Said c. 1910
No real social change has ever happened without a revolution
No real social change has ever come about without a revolution. People are either not familiar with their history, or they have not yet learned that revolution is but thought carried into action.
Anarchism and Other Essays (1910) Said c. 1910
Electoral politics leaves a participant only the choice of being a fool or a rogue
The political arena leaves one no alternative, one must either be a dunce or a rogue.
Anarchism and Other Essays (1910) Said c. 1910
The mass spirit of the age dominates everywhere and destroys quality
If I were to give a summary of the tendency of our times, I would say, Quantity. The multitude, the mass spirit, dominates everywhere, destroying quality.
Anarchism and Other Essays (1910) Said c. 1910
The mass, as a mass, will always crush individuality and originality
As a mass it will always be the annihilator of individuality, of free initiative, of originality.
Anarchism and Other Essays (1910) Said c. 1910
Political assassinations are tiny next to the violence of capital and government
Compared with the wholesale violence of capital and government, political acts of violence are but a drop in the ocean.
Anarchism and Other Essays (1910) Said c. 1910
Resisting tyranny in any form is the highest human ideal
I would say that resistance to tyranny is man's highest ideal. So long as tyranny exists, in whatever form, man's deepest aspiration must resist it as inevitably as man must breathe.
Anarchism and Other Essays (1910) Said c. 1910
Crime is misdirected energy that laws cannot abolish while institutions misdirect people
Crime is naught but misdirected energy. So long as every institution of today, economic, political, social, and moral, conspires to misdirect human energy into wrong channels; so long as most people are out of place doing the things they hate to do, living a life they loathe to live, crime will be inevitable, and all the laws on the statutes can only increase, but never do away with, crime.
Anarchism and Other Essays (1910) Said c. 1910
Patriotism is an artificial superstition sustained by lies that breeds arrogance
Patriotism, on the other hand, 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.
Anarchism and Other Essays (1910) Said c. 1910
A standing army secures peace no more than carrying arms makes a citizen peaceful
The contention that a standing army and navy is the best security of peace is about as logical as the claim that the most peaceful citizen is he who goes about heavily armed.
Anarchism and Other Essays (1910) Said c. 1910
Discipline and restraint lie behind slavery, poverty and all social evils
Discipline and restraint—are they not back of all the evils in the world? Slavery, submission, poverty, all misery, all social iniquities result from discipline and restraint.
Anarchism and Other Essays (1910) Said c. 1910
Prohibition, being abnormal in spirit, only produces an abnormal life
Ostensibly Prohibition is opposed to liquor for reasons of health and economy, but the very spirit of Prohibition being itself abnormal, it succeeds but in creating an abnormal life.
Anarchism and Other Essays (1910) Said c. 1910
Women are judged nowhere by the merit of their work, only as a sex
Nowhere is woman treated according to the merit of her work, but rather as a sex.
Anarchism and Other Essays (1910) Said c. 1910
The claim that women voters will purify politics is a myth
The oft-repeated assertion that woman will purify politics is also but a myth.
Anarchism and Other Essays (1910) Said c. 1910
True emancipation for women begins inwardly, not at the polls or in courts
The right to vote, or equal civil rights, may be good demands, but true emancipation begins neither at the polls nor in courts. It begins in woman's soul.
Anarchism and Other Essays (1910) Said c. 1910
Marriage and love have nothing in common and are opposed to each other
Marriage and love have nothing in common; they are as far apart as the poles; are, in fact, antagonistic to each other.
Anarchism and Other Essays (1910) Said c. 1910
Modern drama is the strongest force for spreading social discontent
Above all, the modern drama, operating through the double channel of dramatist and interpreter, affecting as it does both mind and heart, is the strongest force in developing social discontent, swelling the powerful tide of unrest that sweeps onward and over the dam of ignorance, prejudice, and superstition.
Anarchism and Other Essays (1910) Said c. 1910
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