Emma Goldman Quotes

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Emma Goldman

Profession : Activist

Birth : June 27, 1869

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

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.

Emma Goldman

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

Emma Goldman

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

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.

Emma Goldman

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.

Emma Goldman

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

Emma Goldman

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

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

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

Emma Goldman

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.

Emma Goldman

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

Emma Goldman

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.

Emma Goldman

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

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

Emma Goldman

Crime is naught but misdirected energy.

Emma Goldman

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

Emma Goldman

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

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

Emma Goldman

Politics is the reflex of the business and industrial world.

Emma Goldman