Referring to the American government, the greatest American Anarchist, David Thoreau, said: “Government, what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instance losing its integrity; it has not the vitality and force of a single living man. Law never made man a whit more just; and by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made agents of injustice.

— Emma Goldman

Emma Goldman Quotes

Order derived through submission and maintained by terror is not much of a safe guaranty; yet that is the only ‘order’ that governments have ever maintained.

— Emma Goldman

Poor America, of what avail is all her wealth, if the individuals comprising the nation are wretchedly poor?

— Emma Goldman

Few countries have produced such arrogance and snobbishness as America.

— Emma Goldman

Industry is the ceaseless piracy of the rich against the poor.

— Emma Goldman

I discovered that those who want their property to be respected, have an interest in preaching the existence of paradise and hell, and in keeping the people in ignorance.

— Emma Goldman

If society were only relieved of the waste and expense of keeping a lazy class, and the equally great expense of the paraphernalia of protection this lazy class requires, the social tables would contain an abundance for all, including even the occasional lazy individual.

— Emma Goldman

The guilt of these homicides lies upon every man and woman who, intentionally or by cold indifference, helps to keep up social conditions that drive human beings to despair.

— Emma Goldman

We, who pay dearly for every breath of pure, fresh air, must guard against the tendency to fetter the future.

— Emma Goldman

The masses are crude, lame, pernicious in their demands and influence, and need not to be flattered, but to be schooled. I wish not to concede anything to them but to drill, divide, and break them up, and draw individuals out of them.

— Emma Goldman

The awful waste that patriotism necessitates ought to be sufficient to cure the man of even average intelligence from this disease. Yet patriotism demands still more. The people are urged to be patriotic and for that luxury they pay, not only by supporting their “defenders,” but even by sacrificing their own children. Patriotism requires allegiance to the flag, which means obedience and readiness to kill father, mother, brother, sister.

— Emma Goldman

Prison, a social protection? What monstrous mind ever conceived such an idea? Just as well say that health can be promoted by a widespread contagion!

— Emma Goldman

People are either not familiar with their history, or they have not yet learned that revolution is but thought carried into action.

— Emma Goldman

Referring to the American government, the greatest American Anarchist, David Thoreau, said: “Government, what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instance losing its integrity; it has not the vitality and force of a single living man. Law never made man a whit more just; and by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made agents of injustice.

— Emma Goldman

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

— Emma Goldman

Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy name! Every fool, from king to policeman, from the flatheaded parson to the visionless dabbler in science, presumes to speak authoritatively of human nature. The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of human nature. Yet, how can any one speak of it today, with every soul in a prison, with every heart fettered, wounded, and maimed?

— Emma Goldman

The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weakness of human nature.

— Emma Goldman

There is no greater fallacy than the belief that aims and purposes are one thing, while methods and tactics are another. This conception is a potent menace to social regeneration. All human experience teaches that methods and means cannot be separated from the ultimate aim. The means employed become, through individual habit and social practice, part and parcel of the final purpose; they influence it, modify it, and presently the aims and means become identical.

— Emma Goldman

The problem that confronts us today, and which the nearest future is to solve, is how to be one’s self and yet in oneness with others, to feel deeply with all human beings and still retain one’s own characteristic qualities.

— Emma Goldman

The spoken word, if hurled forth with eloquence, enthusiasm, and fire, could never be erased from the human soul.

— Emma Goldman

If there would have been a bomb thrown, I surely would have been blamed for it.

— Emma Goldman
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