Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldmanwas an anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches. 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...
NationalityRussian
ProfessionActivist
Date of Birth27 June 1869
CountryRussian Federation
pride men enormous-quantities
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. Our entire life--production, politics, and education--rests on quantity, on numbers. The worker who once took pride in the thoroughness and quality of his work, has been replaced by brainless, incompetent automatons, who turn out enormous quantities of things, valueless to themselves, and generally injurious to the rest of mankind. Thus quantity, instead of adding to life's comforts and peace, has merely increased man's burden.
Understand one another.
inferiority economic responsible
Whether our reformers admit it or not, the economic and social inferiority of women is responsible for prostitution.
success ambition mean
Success achieved by the most contemptible means cannot but destroy the soul. ... It helps to cover up the inner corruption and gradually dulls one's scruples, so that those who begin with some high ambition cannot, even if they would, create anything out of themselves.
struggle men evil
Everywhere and always, since its very inception, Christianity has turned the earth into a vale of tears; always it has made of life a weak, diseased thing, always it has instilled fear in man, turning him into a dual being, whose life energies are spent in the struggle between body and soul. In decrying the body as something evil, the flesh as the tempter to everything that is sinful, man has mutilated his being in the vain attempt to keep his soul pure, while his body rotted away from the injuries and tortures inflicted upon it.
weakness opponents fairness
Lack of fairness to an opponent is essentially a sign of weakness.
murder function militarism
the function of militarism is to kill. It cannot live except through murder.
power reality thinking
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 ...
gun people clubs
religion and morality are a much better whip to keep people in submission than even the club and the gun.
art reality desire
Art is a part of the rebellion against the realities of its unfulfilled desire.
military class america
The pathos of it all is that the America which is to be protected by a huge military force is not the America of the people, but that of the privileged class ...
delight mass bravo
The more hideous the mental contortions, the greater the delight and bravos of the mass.
people understanding tragedy
I regard it as a tragedy that people of a differing sexual orientation find themselves proscribed in a world that has so little understanding for homosexuals and that displays such gross indifference for sexual gradations and variations and the great significance they have for living. It is completely foreign to me to wish to regard such people as less valuable, less moral, incapable of noble sentiments and behavior.
philosophy views political
It requires something more than personal experience to gain a philosophy or point of view from any specific event. It is the quality of our response to the event and our capacity to enter into the lives of others that help us to make their lives and experiences our own. In my own case my convictions have derived and developed from events in the lives of others as well as from my own experience. What I have seen meted out to others by authority and repression, economic and political, transcends anything I myself may have endured.