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It Is Safe To Say That No Other Superstition Is So Detrimental To Growth, So Enervating And Paralyzing To The Minds And Hearts Of The People, As The Superstition Of Morality.

-Emma Goldman

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It Is Safe To

Emma Goldman

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It Is Safe To Say That No Other Superstition Is So Detrimental To Growth, So Enervating And Paralyzing To The Minds And Hearts Of The People, As The Superstition Of Morality.

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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.

The Function Of Militarism Is To Kill. It Cannot Live Except Through Murder.

Politics Is The Reflex Of The Business And Industrial World, The Mottos Of Which Are: 'to Take Is More Blessed Than To Give'; 'buy Cheap And Sell Dear'; 'one Soiled Hand Washes The Other.

'rugged Individualism' Has Meant All The 'individualism' For The Masters, While The People Are Regimented Into A Slave Caste To Serve A Handful Of Self-seeking 'supermen.' America Is Perhaps The Best Representative Of This Kind Of Individualism, In Whose Name Political Tyranny And Social Oppression Are Defended And Held Up As Virtues; While Every Aspiration And Attempt Of Man To Gain Freedom And Social Opportunity To Live Is Denounced As 'un-american' And Evil In The Name Of That Same Individuality.

The Christian Religion And Morality Extols The Glory Of The Hereafter, And Therefore Remains Indifferent To The Horrors Of The Earth. Indeed, The Idea Of Self-denial And Of All That Makes For Pain And Sorrow Is Its Test Of Human Worth, Its Passport To The Entry Into Heaven.

Jealousy Is Indeed A Poor Medium To Secure Love, But It Is A Secure Medium To Destroy One

There Is No Hope Even That Woman, With Her Right To Vote, Will Ever Purify Politics.

More Pernicious Than The Power Of A Dictator Is That Of A Class; The Most Terrible - The Tyranny Of A Majority.

Jealousy Is The Very Reverse Of Understanding, Of Sympathy, And Of Generous Feeling. Never Has Jealousy Added To Character, Never Does It Make The Individual Big And Fine.

Religion! How It Dominates Man's Mind, How It Humiliates And Degrades His Soul. God Is Everything, Man Is Nothing, Says Religion.but Out Of That Nothing God Has Created A Kingdom So Despotic, So Tyrannical, So Cruel, So Terribly Exacting That Naught But Gloom And Tears And Blood Have Ruled The World Since Gods Began.

Political Violence Is Organized Violence On The Top Which Creates Individual Violence At The Bottom.

I'd Rather Have Roses On My Table Than Diamonds On My Neck.

It Is Significant That Whenever The Public Mind Is To Be Diverted From Great Social Wrong, A Crusade Is Inaugurated Against Indecency.

Religion, The Dominion Of The Human Mind; Property, The Dominion Of Human Needs; And Government, The Dominion Of Human Conduct, Represent The Stronghold Of Man's Enslavement And All The Horrors It Entails.

The Benefits Brought To The Russian People By Bolshevism Exist Only On Paper Painted In Glowing Colors By Bolshevist Propaganda.

Anarchism Is The Only Philosophy Which Brings To Man The Consciousness Of Himself; Which Maintains That God, The State, And Society Are Non-existent, That Their Promises Are Null And Void, Since They Can Be Fulfilled Only Through Man's Subordination.

After All, That Is What Laws Are For, To Be Made And Unmade.

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.

The People Are Urged To Be Patriotic ... By Sacrificing Their Own Children. Patriotism Requires Allegience To The Flag, Which Means Obedience And Readiness To Kill Father, Mother, Brother, Sister.

A Practical Scheme, Says Oscar Wilde, Is Either One Already In Existence, Or A Scheme That Could Be Carried Out Under The Existing Conditions; But It Is Exactly The Existing Conditions That One Objects To, And Any Scheme That Could Accept These Conditions Is Wrong And Foolish.

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. Thus Love Has The Magic Power To Make Of A Beggar A King.

The Persecution Of The Innovator And Protestant Has Always Been Inspired By Fear On The Part Of Constituted Authority Of Having Its Infallibility Questioned And Its Power Undermined.

No Real Social Change Has Ever Been Brought About Without A Revolution... Revolution Is But Thought Carried Into Action.

Today Is The Parent Of Tomorrow. The Present Casts Its Shadow Far Into The Future. That Is The Law Of Life, Individual And Social. Revolution That Divests Itself Of Ethical Values Thereby Lays The Foundation Of Injustice, Deceit, And Oppression For The Future Society. The Means Used To Prepare The Future Become Its Cornerstone.

The Free Expression Of The Hopes And Aspirations Of A People Is The Greatest And Only Safety In A Sane Society.

A True Conception Of The Relation Of The Sexes Will Not Admit Of Conqueror And Conquered; It Knows Of But One Great Thing; To Give Of One's Self Boundlessly, In Order To Find One's Self Richer, Deeper, Better.

Anarchism, Then, Really Stands For The Liberation Of The Human Mind From The Dominion Of Religion.

A Politician, He Knows That The Majority Cares Little For Ideals Or Integrity. What It Craves Is Display.

It Is Safe To Say That No Other Superstition Is So Detrimental To Growth, So Enervating And Paralyzing To The Minds And Hearts Of The People, As The Superstition Of Morality.

The History Of Human Growth Is At The Same Time The History Of Every New Idea Heralding The Approach Of A Brighter Dawn, And The Brighter Dawn Has Always Been Considered Illegal, Outside Of The Law.

Conceit, Arrogance, And Egotism Are The Essentials Of Patriotism.

Art Is A Part Of The Rebellion Against The Realities Of Its Unfulfilled Desire.

I Want Freedom, The Right To Self-expression , Everybody's Right To Beautiful, Radiant Things.

How Long Would Authority ... Exist, If Not For The Willingness Of The Mass To Become Soldiers, Policemen, Jailers, And Hangmen.

Liberty Will Not Descend To A People, A People Must Raise Themselves To Liberty...

Politics Is The Reflex Of The Business And Industrial World.

John Burroughs Has Stated That Experimental Study Of Animals In Captivity Is Absolutely Useless. Their Character, Their Habits, Their Appetites Undergo A Complete Transformation When Torn From Their Soil In Field And Forest. With Human Nature Caged In A Narrow Space, Whipped Daily Into Submission, How Can We Speak Of Its Potentialities?

Let Us Not Overlook Vital Things, Because Of The Bulk Of Trifles Confronting Us.

Have Not All Theists Painted Their Deity As The God Of Love And Goodness? Yet After Thousands Of Years Of Such Preachments The Gods Remain Deaf To The Agony Of The Human Race.

The Individual Is The True Reality Of Life. A Cosmos In Himself, He Does Not Exist For The State, Nor For That Abstraction Called "society," Or The "nation," Which Is Only A Collection Of Individuals.

The State, Every Government Whatever Its Form, Character Or Color - Be It Absolute Or Constitutional, Monarchy Or Republic, Fascist, Nazi Or Bolshevik - Is By Its Very Nature Conservative, Static, Intolerant Of Change And Opposed To It.

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.

I Feel Sure That The Police Are Helping Us More Than I Could Do In Ten Years. They Are Making More Anarchists Than The Most Prominent People Connected With The Anarchist Cause Could Make In Ten Years. If They Will Only Continue I Shall Be Very Grateful; They Will Save Me Lots Of Work.

I Demand The Independence Of Woman, Her Right To Support Herself; To Live For Herself; To Love Whomever She Pleases, Or As Many As She Pleases. I Demand Freedom For Both Sexes, Freedom Of Action, Freedom In Love And Freedom In Motherhood.

Prostitution, Although Hounded, Imprisoned, And Chained, Is Nevertheless The Greatest Triumph Of Puritanism.

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.

Direct Action Against The Authority In The Shop, Direct Action Against The Authority Of The Law, Direct Action Against The Invasive, Meddlesome Authority Of Our Moral Code, Is The Logical, Consistent Method Of Anarchism. Will It Not Lead To A Revolution? Indeed, It Will. No Real Social Change Has Ever Come Without A Revolution. People Are Either Not Familiar With Their History, Or They Have Not Yet Learned That Revolution Is But Thought Carried Into Action.

I Don't Care If A Man's Theory For Tomorrow Is Correct, I Care If His Spirit Of Today Is Correct.

Direct Action Is The Logical, Consistent Method Of Anarchism.

In The Struggle For Supremacy The Various Political Parties Outdo Each Other In Trickery, Deceit, Cunning, And Shady Machinations, Confident That The One Who Succeeds Is Sure To Be Hailed By The Majority As The Victor. That Is The Only God--success. As To What Expense, What Terrible Cost To Character, Is Of No Moment.

Anarchism Aims To Strip Labor Of Its Deadening, Dulling Aspect, Of Its Gloom And Compulsion. It Aims To Make Work An Instrument Of Joy, Of Strength, Of Color, Of Real Harmony, So That The Poorest Sort Of A Man Should Find In Work Both Recreation And Hope.

The State Is The Altar Of Political Freedom And, Like The Religious Altar, It Is Maintained For The Purpose Of Human Sacrifice.

I Do Not Believe In God, Because I Believe In Man. Whatever His Mistakes, Man Has For Thousands Of Years Been Working To Undo The Botched Job Your God Has Made.

"what Would You Do With The Lazy Ones, Who Would Not Work?" "no One Is Lazy. They Grow Hopeless From The Misery Of Their Present Existence, And Give Up. Under Our Order Of Things, Every Man Would Do The Work He Liked, And Would Have As Much As His Neighbor, So Could Not Be Unhappy And Discouraged."

The Custom Of Procuring Abortions Has Reached Such Appalling Proportions In America As To Be Beyond Belief... So Great Is The Misery Of The Working Classes That Seventeen Abortions Are Committed In Every One Hundred Pregnancies.

Understand One Another.

Women Need Not Always Keep Their Mouths Shut And Their Wombs Open.

To Call The State An Organism Shows A Diseased Tendency To Make A Fetish Of Words.

There Is No Such Thing As A Good Government. There Never Was. There Can't Be.

In The Face Of This Approaching Disaster, It Behooves Men And Women Not Yet Overcome By War Madness To Raise Their Voice Of Protest, To Call The Attention Of The People To The Crime And Outrage Which Are About To Be Perpetrated On Them.

Yes, Authority, Coercion, And Dependence Rest On The Mass, But Never Freedom Or The Free Unfoldment Of The Individual, Never The Birth Of A Free Society. The Socialist Demagogues Know That As Well As I, But They Maintain The Myth Of The Virtues Of The Majority, Because Their Very Scheme Of Life Means The Perpetuation Of Power.

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.

The Inhabitants Of The Other Spots Reason In Like Manner, Of Course, With The Result That From Early Infancy The Mind Of The Child Is Provided With Blood-curdling Stories About The Germans, The French, The Italians, Russians, Etc.

Emancipation Should Make It Possible For Woman To Be Human In The Truest Sense. Everything Within Her That Craves Assertion And Activity Should Reach Its Fullest Expression; All Artificial Barriers Should Be Broken, And The Road Towards Greater Freedom Cleared Of Every Trace Of Centuries Of Submission And Slavery.

Mankind Has Been Punished Long And Heavily For Having Created Its Gods; Nothing But Pain And Persecution Have Been Man's Lot Since Gods Began.

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.

Ask For Work. If They Don't Give You Work, Ask For Bread. If They Do Not Give You Work Or Bread, Then Take Bread.

They Do Not Want To Know That Centralization Is Not Only The Death-knell Of Liberty, But Also Of Health And Beauty, Of Art And Science, All These Being Impossible In A Clock-like, Mechanical Atmosphere.

... The Modern Drama, Operating Through The Double Channel Of Dramatist And Interpreter, Affecting As It Does Both Mind And Heart,is The Strongest Force In Developing Social Discontent, Swelling The Powerful Tide Of Unrest That Sweeps Onward And Over The Dam Of Ignorance, Prejudice, And Superstition.

True Emancipation ... Will Have To Do Away With The Absurd Notion Of The Dualism Of The Sexes, Or That Man And Woman Represent Two Antagonistic Worlds.

Thus Dante's Motto Over Inferno Applies With Equal Force To Marriage: "ye Who Enter Here Leave All Hope Behind.

...the Greatest Bulwark Of Capitalism Is Militarism.

The Inherent Tendency Of The State Is To Concentrate, To Narrow, And Monopolize All Social Activities; The Nature Of Revolution Is, On The Contrary, To Grow, To Broaden, And Disseminate Itself In Ever-wider Circles. In Other Words, The State Is Institutional And Static; Revolution Is Fluent, Dynamic.

The Poor, Stupid, Free American Citizen! Free To Starve, Free To Tramp The Highways Of This Great Country, He Enjoys Universal Suffrage, And By That Right, He Has Forged Chains Around His Limbs. The Reward That He Receives Is Stringent Labor Laws Prohibiting The Right Of Boycott, Of Picketing, Of Everything, Except The Right To Be Robbed Of The Fruits Of His Labor.

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.

Modern Woman Is No Longer Satisfied To Be The Beloved Of A Man; She Looks For Understanding, Comradeship; She Wants To Be Treated As A Human Being And Not Simply As An Object For Sexual Gratification.

Real Wealth Consists In Things Of Utility And Beauty, In Things That Help To Create Strong, Beautiful Bodies And Surroundings Inspiring To Live In.

Life Without An Ideal Is Spiritual Death.

Spiritual Death

Our Institutions And Conditions Rest Upon Deep-seated Ideas. To Change Those Conditions And At The Same Time Leave The Underlying Ideas And Values Intact Means Only A Superficial Transformation, One That Cannot Be Permanent Or Bring Real Betterment. It Is A Change Of Form Only, Not Of Substance, As So Tragically Proven By Russia.

Crime Is Naught But Misdirected Energy.

Peter Kropotkin...was Recognized By Friend And Foe As One Of The Greatest Minds...of The Nineteenth Century...the Lucidity And Brilliance Of His Mind Combined With His Warm-heartednes S Into The Harmonious Whole Of A Fascinating And Gracious Personality.

Anarchism Stands For The Liberation Of The Human Mind From The Dominion Of Religion And Liberation Of The Human Body From The Coercion Of Property; Liberation From The Shackles And Restraint Of Government. It Stands For A Social Order Based On The Free Grouping Of Individuals.

It Is The Absolutism Of Theism, Its Pernicious Influence Upon Humanity, Its Paralyzing Effect Upon Thought And Action, Which Atheism Is Fighting With All Its Power.

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.

There Is No Greater Fallacy Than The Belief That Aims And Purposes Are One Thing, While Methods And Tactics Are Another ... All Human Experience Teaches That Methods And Means Cannot Be Separated From The Ultimate Aim.

... The Keynote Of Government Is Injustice.

Democracy Must First Be Safe For America Before It Can Be Safe For The World.

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.

Always, At Every Period, The Few Were The Banner Bearers Of A Great Idea, Of Liberating Effort. Not So The Mass, The Leaden Weight Of Which Does Not Let It Move.

There's Never Been A Good Government.

The Most Vital Right Is The Right To Love And Be Loved.

True, The Movement For Woman's Rights Has Broken Many Old Fetters, But It Has Also Forged New Ones.

The Dominant, Almost General, Idea Of Revolution - Particularly The Socialist Idea - Is That Revolution Is A Violent Change Of Social Conditions Through Which One Social Class, The Working Class, Becomes Dominant Over Another Class, The Capitalist Class. It Is The Conception Of A Purely Physical Change, And As Such It Involves Only Political Scene Shifting And Institutional Rearrangements

There Are, However, Some Potentates I Would Kill By Any And All Means At My Disposal. They Are Ignorance, Superstition, And Bigotry — The Most Sinister And Tyrannical Rulers On Earth.

Statutory Regulations, Legislative Enactments, Constitutional Provisions, Are Invasive. They Never Yet Induced Man To Do Anything He Could And Would Not Do By Virtue Of His Intellect Or Temperament, Nor Prevented Anything That Man Was Impelled To Do By The Same Dictates.

The Experience Of Every-day Life Fully Proves That The Armed Individual Is Invariably Anxious To Try His Strength. The Same Is Historically True Of Governments. Really Peaceful Countries Do Not Waste Life And Energy In War Preparations, With The Result That Peace Is Maintained.

The Ultimate End Of All Revolutionary Social Change Is To Establish The Sanctity Of Human Life, The Dignity Of Man, The Right Of Every Human Being To Liberty And Well-being.

Perhaps Even More Than Constituted Authority, It Is Social Uniformity And Sameness That Harass The Individual Most. His Very "uniqueness," "separateness" And "differentiation" Make Him An Alien, Not Only In His Native Place, But Even In His Own Home. Often More So Than The Foreign Born Who Generally Falls In With The Established.

So-called Individualism Is The Social And Economic Laissez-faire: The Exploitation Of The Masses By The Classes By Means Of Legal Trickery, Spiritual Debasement And Systematic Indoctrination Of The Servile Spirit, Which Process Is Known As 'education'.

Indeed, The Keynote Of Government Is Injustice. With The Arrogance And Self-sufficiency Of The King Who Could Do No Wrong, Governments Ordain, Judge, Condemn, And Punish The Most Insignificant Offenses, While Maintaining Themselves By The Greatest Of All Offenses, The Annihilation Of Individual Liberty.

Anarchism, The Great Leaven Of Thought, Is Today Permeating Every Phase Of Human Endeavor.... It Is The Philosophy Of The Sovereignty Of The Individual. It Is The Theory Of Social Harmony. It Is The Great, Surging, Living Truth That Is Reconstructing The World, And That Will Usher In The Dawn.

How To Raise This Dead Level Of Theistic Belief Is Really A Matter Of Life And Death For All Denominations. Therefore Their Tolerance; But It Is A Tolerance Not Of Understanding; But Of Weakness.

Publishers, Theatrical Managers, And Critics Ask Not For The Quality Inherent In Creative Art, But Will It Meet With A Good Sale, Will It Suit The Palate Of The People? Alas, This Palate Is Like A Dumping Ground; It Relishes Anything That Needs No Mental Mastication. As A Result, The Mediocre, The Ordinary, The Commonplace Represents The Chief Literary Output.

Poor America, Of What Avail Is All Her Wealth, If The Individuals Comprising The Nation Are Wretchedly Poor? If They Live In Squalor, In Filth, In Crime, With Hope And Joy Gone, A Homeless, Soulless Army Of Human Prey.

Pettiness Separates; Breadth Unites. Let Us Be Broad And Big.

The Most Unpardonable Sin In Society Is Independence Of Thought.

The Triumph Of The Philosophy Of Atheism Is To Free Man From The Nightmare Of Gods; It Means The Dissolution Of The Phantoms Of The Beyond.

In Modern Capitalism Economic Exploitation Rather Than Political Oppression Is The Real Enemy Of The People.

You Cannot Build Up A Standing Army And Then Throw It Back Into A Box Like Tin Soldiers. Armies Equipped To The Teeth With Weapons, With Highly Developed Instruments Of Murder And Backed By Their Military Interests, Have Their Own Dynamic Functions.

The Burden Of All Song And Praise "unto The Highest" Has Been That God Stands For Justice And Mercy. Yet Injustice Among Men Is Ever On The Increase; The Outrages Committed Against The Masses In This Country Alone Would Seem Enough To Overflow The Very Heavens. But Where Are The Gods To Make An End To All These Horrors, These Wrongs, This Inhumanity To Man? No, Not The Gods, But Man Must Rise In His Mighty Wrath. He, Deceived By All The Deities, Betrayed By Their Emissaries, He, Himself, Must Undertake To Usher In Justice Upon The Earth.

You Have Opened Up The Prison Gates Of My Womanhood. And All The Passion That Was Unsatisfied In For Me So Many Years, Leaped Into A Wild Reckless Storm Boundless As The Sea.

The State Is A Term For The Legislative And Administrative Machinery Whereby Certain Business Of The People Is Transacted, And Badly So.

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.

Anarchism...stands For Direct Action, The Open Defiance Of, And Resistance To, All Laws And Restrictions, Economic, Social, And Moral.

If Elections Really Changed Anything, They Would Be Outlawed.

True Emancipation Begins Neither At The Polls Nor In The Courts. It Begins In Woman's Soul.

The Average Mind Is Easily Content With Inherited And Acquired Things, Or With The Dicta Of Parents And Teachers, Because It Is Much Easier To Imitate Than To Create.

... Nothing Satisfies The Craving Of Most Women So Much As Scandal.

Salvation Lies In An Energetic March Onward Towards A Brighter And Clearer Future.

All Government, Whatever Its Forms Or Pretenses, Is A Dead Weight That Paralyzes The Free Spirit And Activities Of The Masses.

I May Be Arrested, I May Be Tried And Thrown Into Jail, But I Never Will Be Silent.

What's Wrong With Lust? You Fancy Your Neighbor's Husband So What Are You Supposed To Do? Poke Your Eyes Out So That You Can't See Him Anymore? Acting On It Is Maybe A Sin ... But My God, Just Lusting After Someone? Is That So Bad?

Leo Tolstoy, The Greatest Anti-patriot Of Our Time, Defines Patriotism As The Principle That Will Justify The Training Of Wholesale Murderers; A Trade That Requires Better Equipment In The Exercise Of Man-killing Than The Making Of Such Necessities As Shoes, Clothing, And Houses; A Trade That Guarantees Better Returns And Greater Glory Than That Of The Honest Workingman.

Religion Is A Superstition That Originated In Man`s Mental Inability To Solve Natural Phenomena. The Church Is An Orgainized Institution That Has Always Been Stumbling To Block Progress.

The Most Disheartening Tendency Common Among Readers Is To Tear Out One Sentence From A Work, As A Criterion Of The Writer's Ideas Or Personality.

True, We Have No Conscription; That Is, Men Are Not Usually Forced To Enlist In The Army, But We Have Developed A Far More Exacting And Rigid Force-necessity.

When Primitive Man Heard Thunder Or Saw The Lightning, He Could Not Account For Either, And Therefore Concluded That Back Of Them Must Be A Force Greater Than Himself. Similarly He Saw A Supernatural Force In The Rain, And In The Various Other Changes In Nature.

Supernatural Forces

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.

It Is Characteristic Of Theistic "tolerance" That No One Really Cares What The People Believe In, Just So They Believe Or Pretend To Believe.

Marriage Is Primarily An Economic Arrangement, An Insurance Pact. It Differs From The Ordinary Life Insurance Agreement Only In That It Is More Binding, More Exacting.

The Government Will ... Go On In The Highly Democratic Method Of Conscripting American Manhood For European Slaughter.

No, It Is Not Because Woman Is Lacking In Responsibility, But Because She Has Too Much Of The Latter That She Demands To Know How To Prevent Conception.

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. True Social Harmony Grows Naturally Out Of Solidarity Of Interests. In A Society Where Those Who Always Work Never Have Anything, While Those Who Never Work Enjoy Everything, Solidarity Of Interests Is Non-existent; Hence Social Harmony Is But A Myth.... Thus The Entire Arsenal Of Governments - Laws, Police, Soldiers, The Courts, Legislatures, Prisons - Is Strenuously Engaged In "harmonizing" The Most Antagonistic Elements In Society.

... Woman Does Not See What People Of Intellect Perceived Fifty Years Ago: That Suffrage Is An Evil, That It Has Only Helped To Enslave People, That It Has But Closed Their Eyes That They May Not See How Craftily They Were Made To Submit.

If Not For The Direct Action Of A John Brown And His Comrades, America Would Still Trade In The Flesh Of The Black Man.

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.

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.

No Great Idea In Its Beginning Can Ever Be Within The Law. How Can It Be Within The Law?

Anarchism:the Philosophy Of A New Social Order Based On Liberty Unrestricted By Man-made Law; The Theory That All Forms Of Government Rest On Violence, And Are Therefore Wrong And Harmful, As Well As Unnecessary.

Patriotism ... Is A Superstition Artificially Created And Maintained Through A Network Of Lies And Falsehoods; A Superstition That Robs Man Of His Self-respect And Dignity, And Increases His Arrogance And Conceit.

Men Towering High Above Such Political Pygmies, Men Of Refinement, Of Culture, Of Ability, Are Jeered Into Silence As Mollycoddles. It Is Absurd To Claim That Ours Is The Era Of Individualism. Ours Is Merely A More Poignant Repetition Of The Phenomenon Of All History: Every Effort For Progress, For Enlightenment, For Science, For Religious, Political, And Economic Liberty, Emanates From The Minority, And Not From The Mass. Today, As Ever, The Few Are Misunderstood, Hounded, Imprisoned, Tortured, And Killed.

Social And Economic Well-being Will Become A Reality Only Through The Zeal, Courage, The Non-compromising Determination Of Intelligent Minorities, And Not Through The Mass.

On Rare Occasions One Does Hear Of A Miraculous Case Of A Married Couple Falling In Love After Marriage, But On Close Examination It Will Be Found That It Is A Mere Adjustment To The Inevitable.

The Whole History Of Man Is Continuous Proof Of The Maxim That To Divest One's Methods Of Ethical Concepts Means To Sink Into The Depths Of Utter Demoralization.

Puritanism, In Whatever Expression, Is A Poisonous Germ. On The Surface Everything May Look Strong And Vigorous; Yet The Poison Works Its Way Persistently, Until The Entire Fabric Is Doomed.

The Most Absurd Apology For Authority And Law Is That They Serve To Diminish Crime. Aside From The Fact That The State Is Itself The Greatest Criminal, Breaking Every Written And Natural Law, Stealing In The Form Of Taxes, Killing In The Form Of War And Capital Punishment, It Has Come To An Absolute Standstill In Coping With Crime. It Has Failed Utterly To Destroy Or Even Minimize The Horrible Scourge Of Its Own Creation.

Morality And Its Victim, The Mother - What A Terrible Picture! Is There Indeed Anything More Terrible, More Criminal, Than Our Glorified Sacred Function Of Motherhood?

Revolution That Divests Itself Of Ethical Values Thereby Lays The Foundation Of Injustice, Deceit, And Oppression For The Future Society.

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.

Nowhere Is Woman Treated According To The Merit Of Her Work, But Rather As A Sex. It Is Therefore Almost Inevitable That She Should Pay For Her Right To Exist, To Keep A Position In Whatever Line, With Sex Favors. Thus It Is Merely A Question Of Degree Whether She Sells Herself To One Man, In Or Out Of Marriage, Or To Many Men!... The Economic And Social Inferiority Of Woman Is Responsible For Prostitution.

Revolution Is Indeed A Violent Process. But If It Is To Result Only In A Change Of Dictatorship, In A Shifting Of Names And Political Personalities, Then It Is Hardly Worth While.

The History Of Progress Is Written In The Blood Of Men And Women Who Have Dared To Espouse An Unpopular Cause, As, For Instance, The Black Man's Right To His Body, Or Woman's Right To Her Soul.

The Demand For Equal Rights In Every Vocation Of Life Is Just And Fair; But, After All, The Most Vital Right Is The Right To Love And Be Loved.

I Believe - Indeed, I Know - That Whatever Is Fine And Beautiful In The Human Expresses And Asserts Itself In Spite Of Government, And Not Because Of It.

Politicians Promise You Heaven Before Election And Give You Hell After

The State Has No More Existence Than Gods And Devils Have. They Are Equally The Reflex And Creation Of Man, For Man, The Individual, Is The Only Reality. The State Is But The Shadow Of Man, The Shadow Of His Opaqueness, Of His Ignorance And Fear.

What Is Generally Regarded As Success - Acquisition Of Wealth, The Capture Of Power Or Social Prestige - I Consider The Most Dismal Failures. I Hold When It Is Said Of A Man That He Has Arrived, It Means That He Is Finished - His Development Has Stopped At That Point.

Readiness,' Far Far From Assuring Peace, Has At All Times And In All Countries Been Instrumental In Precipitating Armed Conflicts.

Every Society Has The Criminals It Deserves.

I Was Called Before The Head Matron, A Tall Woman With A Stolid Face. She Began Taking My Pedigree. What Religion? Was The First Question. None, I Am An Atheist. Atheism Is Prohibited Here. You Will Have To Go To Church. I Replied That I Would Do Nothing Of The Kind. I Did Not Believe In Anything The Church Stood For And, Not Being A Hypocrite, I Would Not Attend.

The God Idea Is Growing More Impersonal And Nebulous In Proportion As The Human Mind Is Learning To Understand Natural Phenomena And In The Degree That Science Progressively Correlates Human And Social Events.

Sure, Nothing Succeeds Like Success. Fact Is, Dearest, We Are Fools. We Cling To An Ideal No One Wants Or Cares About. I Am The Greater Fool Of The Two Of Us. I Go On Eating Out My Heart And Poisoning Every Moment Of My Life In The Attempt To Rouse People's Sensibilities. At Least If I Could Do It With Closed Eyes. The Irony Is I See The Futility Of My Efforts And Yet I Can't Let Go.

What I Believe Is A Process Rather Than A Finality.

It Is Organized Violence On Top Which Creates Individual Violence At The Bottom. It Is The Accumulated Indignation Against Organized Wrong, Organized Crime, Organized Injustice, Which Drives The Political Offender To Act.

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.

All Claims Of Education Notwithstanding, The Pupil Will Accept Only That Which His Mind Craves.

We Say That If America Has Entered The War To Make The World Safe For Democracy, She Must First Make Democracy Safe In America.

We Say That If America Has Entered The War To Make The World Safe For Democracy, She Must First Make Democracy Safe In America. How Else Is The World To Take America Seriously, When Democracy At Home Is Daily Being Outraged, Free Speech Suppressed, Peaceable Assemblies Broken Up By Overbearing And Brutal Gangsters In Uniform; When Free Press Is Curtailed And Every Independent Opinion Gagged? Verily, Poor As We Are In Democracy, How Can We Give Of It To The World?

Religion And Morality Are A Much Better Whip To Keep People In Submission Than Even The Club And The Gun.

... If The Production Of Any Commodity Necessitates The Sacrifice Of Human Life, Society Should Do Without That Commodity, But Itcan Not Do Without That Life.

We Americans Claim To Be A Peace-loving People. We Hate Bloodshed; We Are Opposed To Violence. Yet We Go Into Spasms Of Joy Over The Possibility Of Projecting Dynamite Bombs From Flying Machines Upon Helpless Citizens.

It Is A Tragedy, I Feel, That People Of A Different Sexual Type Are Caught In A World Which Shows So Little Understanding For Homosexuals And Is So Crassly Indifferent To The Various Gradations And Variations Of Gender And Their Great Significance In Life.

Redemption Through The Cross Is Worse Than Damnation, Because Of The Terrible Burden It Imposes Upon Humanity, Because Of The Effect It Has On The Human Soul, Fettering And Paralyzing It With The Weight Of The Burden Exacted Through The Death Of Christ.

Christ And His Teachings Are The Embodiment Of Submission, Of Inertia, Of The Denial Of Life; Hence Responsible For The Things Done In Their Name.

Patriotism Is A Menace To Liberty.

Revolution Is But Thought Carried Into Action.

No One Has Yet Realized The Wealth Of Sympathy, The Kindness And Generosity Hidden In The Soul Of A Child. The Effort Of Every True Education Should Be To Unlock That Treasure.

The Political Superstition Is Still Holding Sway Over The Hearts And Minds Of The Masses, But The True Lovers Of Liberty Will Have No More To Do With It. Instead, They Believe With Stirner That Man Has As Much Liberty As He Is Willing To Take. Anarchism Therefore Stands For Direct Action, The Open Defiance Of, And Resistance To, All Laws And Restrictions, Economic, Social, And Moral. But Defiance And Resistance Are Illegal. Therein Lies The Salvation Of Man. Everything Illegal Necessitates Integrity, Self-reliance And Courage.

Jealousy Is Indeed A Poor Medium To Secure Love, But It Is A Secure Medium To Destroy One's Self-respect. For Jealous People, Like Dope-fiends, Stoop To The Lowest Level And In The End Inspire Only Disgust And Loathing.

Crime Is Naught But Misdirected Energy. So Long As Every Institution Of Today, Economic, Political, Social, And Moral, Conspires To Misdirect Human Energy Into Wrong Channels; So Long As Most People Are Out Of Place Doing The Things They Hate To Do, Living A Life They Loathe To Live, Crime Will Be Inevitable, And All The Laws On The Statutes Can Only Increase, But Never Do Away With, Crime.

Love Needs No Protection; It Is Its Own Protection.

Man Must Get Back To Himself Before He Can Learn His Relation To His Fellows. Prometheus Chained To The Rock Of Ages Is Doomed To Remain The Prey Of The Vultures Of Darkness. Unbind Prometheus, And You Dispel The Night And Its Horrors.

The Worker Who Knows The Cause Of His Misery, Who Understands The Make-up Of Our Iniquitous Social And Industrial System Can Do More For Himself And His Kind Than Christ And The Followers Of Christ Have Ever Done For Humanity; Certainly More Than Meek Patience, Ignorance, And Submission Have Done.

[woman's] Life-long Economic Parasitism Has Utterly Blurred Her Conception Of The Meaning Of Equality.

Conceit, Arrogance And Egotism Are The Essentials Of Patriotism... Patriotism Assumes That Our Globe Is Divided Into Little Spots, Each One Surrounded By An Iron Gate. Those Who Have Had The Fortune Of Being Born On Some Particular Spot Consider Themselves Nobler, Better, Grander, More Intelligent Than Those Living Beings Inhabiting Any Other Spot. It Is, Therefore, The Duty Of Everyone Living On That Chosen Spot To Fight, Kill And Die In The Attempt To Impose His Superiority Upon All The Others.

If Voting Changed Anything, They'd Make It Illegal.

If They Do Not Give You Work, Demand Bread. If They Deny You Both, Take Bread. It Is Your Sacred Right!

From Infancy, Almost, The Average Girl Is Told That Marriage Is Her Ultimate Goal; Therefore Her Training And Education Must Be Directed Toward That End. Like The Mute Beast Fattened For Slaughter, She Is Prepared For That.

So Few People Realize That Preparedness Never Leads To Peace, But That It Is Indeed The Road To Universal Slaughter.

Out Of The Chaos, The Future Emerges In Harmony And Beauty.

What Is Patriotism? Is It Love Of One's Birthplace, The Place Of Childhood's Recollections And Hopes, Dreams And Aspirations? Is It The Place Where, In Childlike Naïveté, We Would Watch The Passing Clouds, And Wonder Why We, Too, Could Not Float So Swiftly? The Place Where We Would Count The Milliard Glittering Stars, Terror-stricken Lest Each One "an Eye Should Be," Piercing The Very Depths Of Our Little Souls?

Perhaps Even More Than Constituted Authority, It Is Social Uniformity And Sameness That Harass The Individual Most.

The Most Violent Element In Society Is Ignorance.

To The Indefinite, Uncertain Mind Of The American Radical The Most Contradictory Ideas And Methods Are Possible. The Result Is A Sad Chaos In The Radical Movement, A Sort Of Intellectual Hash, Which Has Neither Taste Nor Character.

The Powers Know That The People At Large Are Like Children Whose Despair, Sorrow, And Tears Can Be Turned Into Joy With A Little Toy. ... An Army And Navy Represents The People's Toys.

Woman, Essentially A Purist, Is Naturally Bigoted And Relentless In Her Effort To Make Others As Good As She Thinks They Ought To Be.

Anarchism Asserts The Possibility Of An Organization Without Discipline, Fear, Or Punishment, And Without The Pressure Of Poverty: A New Social Organism Which Will Make An End To The Terrible Struggle For The Means Of Existence, --the Savage Struggle Which Undermines The Finest Qualities In Man, And Ever Widens The Social Abyss. In Short, Anarchism Strives Towards A Social Organization Which Will Establish Well-being For All.

Give Us What Belongs To Us In Peace, And If You Don't Give It To Us In Peace, We Will Take It By Force.

Under Miserable Conditions Of Life, Any Vision Of The Possibility Of Better Things Makes The Present Misery More Intolerable, And Spurs Those Who Suffer To The Most Energetic Struggles To Improve Their Lot, And If These Struggles Only Immediately Result In Sharper Misery, The Outcome Is Sheer Desperation.

Whether Our Reformers Admit It Or Not, The Economic And Social Inferiority Of Women Is Responsible For Prostitution.

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