61 "Emma Goldman" Quotes And Sayings

Emma Goldman was one of the most important figures of the anarchist movement of the early 1900s. She did not believe in the validity of conventional authority, and she did not hesitate to challenge it. Her brand of anarchism embraced many different social and political forces, but her ideas were always centered on what she viewed as social injustice and economic exploitation. Goldman was also an advocate for free speech and free love during a time when such values were not widely accepted Read more

Born in 1869 in Kovno (now Kaunas), Lithuania, Goldman escaped to Russia at the age of twelve where she was educated in a girls' school. She left Russia when she found out that her father was a Jew and her mother converted to Orthodox Christianity in order to marry him. Goldman returned to Russia in 1887 and gave birth to her daughter Rivka, but soon after her daughter's birth she left her husband and went into hiding after being accused by authorities of distributing leaflets that insulted the tsar.

She lived under various aliases until 1902 when she moved to New York City.

1
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. Man has subdued bodies, but all the power on earth has been unable to subdue love. Man has conquered whole nations, but all his armies could not conquer love. Man has chained and fettered the spirit, but he has been utterly helpless before love. High on a throne, with all the splendor and pomp his gold can command, man is yet poor and desolate, if love passes him by. And if it stays, the poorest hovel is radiant with warmth, with life and color. Thus love has the magic power to make of a beggar a king. Yes, love is free; it can dwell in no other atmosphere. In freedom it gives itself unreservedly, abundantly, completely. All the laws on the statutes, all the courts in the universe, cannot tear it from the soil, once love has taken root. . Emma Goldman
2
People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take. Emma Goldman
3
I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. Emma Goldman
4
The philosophy of Atheism represents a concept of life without any metaphysical Beyond or Divine Regulator. It is the concept of an actual, real world with its liberating, expanding and beautifying possibilities, as against an unreal world, which, with its spirits, oracles, and mean contentment has kept humanity in helpless degradation. Emma Goldman
When we can't dream any longer we die.
5
When we can't dream any longer we die. Emma Goldman
6
‎Civilization has been a continuous struggle of the individual or of groups of individuals against the State and even against "society, " that is, against the majority subdued and hypnotized by the State and State worship. Emma Goldman
Every society has the criminals it deserves.
7
Every society has the criminals it deserves. Emma Goldman
8
I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. "I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things." Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world – prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own closest comrades I would live my beautiful ideal. Emma Goldman
9
No great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law. How can it be within the law? The law is stationary. The law is fixed. The law is a chariot wheel which binds us all regardless of conditions or place or time. Emma Goldman
10
I'd rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck. Emma Goldman
11
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. Emma Goldman
12
Love is it's own protection. Emma Goldman
13
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
14
If I can't dance to it, it's not my revolution. Emma Goldman
15
Women need not always keep their mouths shut and their wombs open. Emma Goldman
16
Love, the strongest and deepest element in all life, the harbinger of hope, of joy, of ecstasy; love, the defier of all laws, of all conventions; love, the freest, the most powerful moulder of human destiny; how can such an all-compelling force be synonymous with that poor little State and Church-begotten weed, marriage? Emma Goldman
17
Love, the strongest and deepest element in all life, the harbinger of hope, of joy, of ecstasy; love, the defier of all laws, of all conventions; love, the freest, the most powerful moulder of human destiny; how can such an all-compelling force be synonymous with that poor little State and Church-begotten weed, marriage?love, Emma Goldman
18
Before we can forgive one another, we have to understand one another. Emma Goldman
19
Consciously or unconsciously, most theists see in gods and devils, heaven and hell, reward and punishment, a whip to lash the people into obedience, meekness and contentment.... The philosophy of atheism expresses the expansion and growth of the human mind. The philosophy of theism, if we can call it a philosophy, is static and fixed. Emma Goldman
20
The more hideous the mental contortions, the greater the delight and bravos of the mass. Emma Goldman