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Portrait of Emma Goldman

Emma Goldman

(1869–1940) Political Philosopher Lithuania

368 quotes in 1605 categories

Emma Goldman calls out the cruelty of wars fought in humanity's name. She argues that love is the deepest force that shapes hope, joy, and even law. She also warns that a majority's tyranny can be more dangerous than a single dictator.

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Emma Goldman was a political philosopher from Lithuania, best known for Anarchism and Other Essays.

Quick Facts About Emma Goldman

Born: June 27, 1869
Died: May 14, 1940
Nationality: Lithuania
Profession: Political Philosopher
Notable works: Anarchism and Other Essays
Known for: Living My Life, Anarchism and Other Essays, My Disillusionment in Russia, The Social Significance of the Modern Drama, My Further Disillusionment in Russia
Spouse: Jacob Kershner

About Emma Goldman

Emma Goldman was a Russian‑born anarchist revolutionary, activist and writer who helped shape anarchist political ideas in North America and Europe in the early 1900s.

Quotes by Emma Goldman

Understand one another.

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... the keynote of government is injustice.

Anarchy

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Patriotism is a menace to liberty.

Freedom

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If I can't dance, it's not my revolution.

Dance

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Crime is naught but misdirected energy.

Crime

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There's never been a good government.

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Life without an ideal is spiritual death.

Death

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Every society has the criminals it deserves.

Community

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It is organized violence on the top which creates individual violence at the bottom

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... nothing satisfies the craving of most women so much as scandal.

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“If I can't dance to it, it's not my revolution.”

Anarchy

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

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To call the State an organism shows a diseased tendency to make a fetish of words.

Biology

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Lack of fairness to an opponent is essentially a sign of weakness.

Fairness

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

Art

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

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You have opened up the prison gates of my womanhood. And all the passion that was unsatisfied in for me so many…

Boundless

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Anarchism...stands for direct action, the open defiance of, and resistance to, all laws and restrictions, economic, social, and moral.

Action

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Revolution is indeed a violent process. But if it is to result only in a change of dictatorship, in a shifting of…

Change

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To the moralist prostitution does not consist so much in the fact that the woman sells her body, but rather that she…

Body

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

Action

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Why waste your life working for a few shillings a week in a scullery, eighteen hours a day, when a woman could…

Body

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How long would authority ... exist, if not for the willingness of the mass to become soldiers, policemen, jailers, and hangmen.

Authority

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More pernicious than the power of a dictator is that of a class; the most terrible - the tyranny of a majority.

Class

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Indeed, the keynote of government is injustice. With the arrogance and self-sufficiency of the King who could do no wrong, governments ordain,…

Annihilation

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statutory regulations, legislative enactments, constitutional provisions, are invasive. They never yet induced man to do anything he could and would not do…

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The worker who knows the cause of his misery, who understands the make-up of our iniquitous social and industrial system can do…

Atheism

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Emancipation should make it possible for woman to be human in the truest sense. Everything within her that craves assertion and activity…

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No real social change has ever been brought about without a revolution - Revolution is but thought carried into action. Every effort…

Action

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The soldier's business is to take life. For that he is paid by the State, eulogized by political charlatans and upheld by…

Business

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The higher mental development of woman, the less possible it is for her to meet a congenial male who will see in…

Character

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The conception of gods originated in fear and curiosity. Primitive man, unable to understand the phenomena of nature, and harassed by them,…

Conception

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“Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body…

Anarchism

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“Yes, I may be considered an enemy of woman; but if I can help her see the light, I shall not complain.…

Life

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“The right to vote, or equal civil rights, may be good demands, but true emancipation begins neither at the polls nor in…

Civil rights

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“Referring to the American government, the greatest American Anarchist, David Thoreau, said: "Government, what is it but a tradition, though a recent…

American government

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Nora leaves her husband, not-as the stupid critic would have it-because she is tired of her responsibilities or feels the need of…

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“I know how your visit and my strange behaviour must have affected you," he wrote. " The sight of your face after…

Freedom

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“Woman, even more than man, is a fetich worshipper, and though her idols may change, she is ever on her knees, ever…

Christian religion

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'Rugged individualism' has meant all the 'individualism' for the masters, while the people are regimented into a slave caste to serve a…

America

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Emma Goldman by topic

Men (49) Freedom (44) Life (42) Politics (40) Anarchism (37) People (33) Social (32) Religion (31) Humans (29) Love (26) Psychology (24) Anarchy (24) World (21) Revolution (21) Individual (21) Government (20) Political (19) Atheism (19) Mind (18) Liberty (18)