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"If I can't dance I don't want to be in your revolution," said Emma Goldman (1869-1940), feminist heroine, anarchist activist, editor, writer, teacher, jailbird and general trouble-maker.
Or did she? Perhaps she said, "If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution," as my purple T-shirt claims under a picture of Emma looking demure in a wide-brimmed hat. Or was it rather, "If I can't dance to it, it's not my revolution," as the quote appears in a 1983 "non-sexist yet traditional" Passover Haggadah?
In fact, though the sentiment is indeed Emma Goldman's, one she frequently pronounced and acted upon, she wrote none of the above, notwithstanding that each of these versions and more has been attributed to her on buttons, posters, banners, T-shirts, bumper stickers, and in books and articles, for nearly twenty years. Here, rather, is what she did say, in her 1931 autobiography Living My Life:
"At the dances I was one of the most untiring and gayest. One evening a cousin of Sasha [Alexander Berkman], a young boy, took me aside. With a grave face, as if he were about to announce the death of a dear comrade, he whispered to me that it did not behoove an agitator to dance. Certainly not with such reckless abandon, anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to become a force in the anarchist movement. My frivolity would only hurt the Cause."
"I grew furious at the impudent interference of the boy. I told him to mind his own business, I was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into my face. I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from conventions 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 should not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. "I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everyboy'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 comrades I would live my beautiful ideal." [Living My Life (New York: Knopf, 1934), p. 56]
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.
Emma Goldman, "What is Anarchy?"
The emotions of the ignorant man are continuously kept at a pitch by the most blood-curdling stories about Anarchism. Not a thing too outrageous to be employed against this philosophy and its exponents. Therefore Anarchism represents to the unthinking what the proverbial bad man does to the child,--a black monster bent on swallowing everything; in short, destruction and violence.
Emma Goldman, "What is Anarchy?"
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.
Emma Goldman, "What is Anarchy?"
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 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.
Emma Goldman
A scoundrel's worst fear is a society without money: for in such a society he would only get the respect he deserves.
Ben Franklin
“Western man fills his pantry with groceries, and thinks himself self-sufficient.â€
-Gandhi
“When I am good, I am very very good, but when I am bad I am better.â€
-B. Bardot
A wealthy man's heart is a ghetto...
an anarchist's heart is a kingdom
Crimethinc.com... Fighting For Our Lives
Some people never go crazy, what truly horrible lives they must live.
People go to church for the same reasons they go to a tavern: to stupefy themselves, to forget their misery, to imagine themselves, for a few minutes anyway, free and happy.
Mikhail Bakunin
The measure of the state's success is that the word anarchy frightens people, while the word state does not.
Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day. Give him a religion, and he'll starve to death while praying for a fish.
The passion for destruction is also a creative passion.
Mikhail Bakunin
Cruel leaders are replaced only to have new leaders turn cruel.
Che Guevara
I don't care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting.
Che Guevara
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