Home › Authors › Voltairine de Cleyre
Voltairine de Cleyre Quotes
1866–1912 United States
Voltairine de Cleyre (17 November 1866 – 20 June 1912) was an American anarchist and feminist writer and orator, who opposed statist policies, marriage, and the domination of religion in human sexual roles and women's opportunities. A proponent of libertarian socialism and the free thought movement, she was initially drawn to individualist anarchism but evolved into accepting mutualism and stateless communism, while formally labelling herself only an anarchist and shunning doctrinal fractiousness, believing that any system was acceptable as long as it did not involve coercive force.
United States Activists Anarchists Authors Essayists Also known as: De Cleyre, Voltairine
Random Voltairine de Cleyre quote
67 quotes
This, then, is the tyranny of the State; it denies, to both woman and man, the right to earn a living, and grants it as a privilege to a favored few who for that favor must pay ninety per cent toll to the granters of it.
Sex Slavery (1890)
A man won't steal, ordinarily, unless that which he steals is something he cannot as easily get without stealing; in liberty the cost of stealing would involve greater difficulties than producing, and consequently he would not be apt to steal.
The Economic Tendency of Freethought (1890)
It is not to be supposed that any one will attain to the full realization of what he purposes, even when those purposes do not involve united action with others; he will fall short… But something he will attain, if he continues to aim high.
Do not preach the straight and narrow way while going joyously upon the wide one. Preach the wide one, or do not preach at all; but do not fool yourself by saying you would like to help usher in a free society, but you cannot sacrifice an armchair for it.
The Dominant Idea (1910)
As the peoples always move,—as Life, which is greater than the peoples, always moves. And the business of the revolutionist, the Seeker for the Changes of Old Forms, the dreamer of Liberty and Plenty, is to be with them in their struggle, in their victory, in their defeat, whenever, wherever, the people rise.
The Mexican Revolt (1911)
Workers, the most absolutely necessary part of the whole social structure, without whose services none can either eat, or clothe, or shelter himself, are just the ones who get the least to eat, to wear, and to be housed withal — to say nothing of their share of the other social benefits which the rest of us are supposed to furnish, such as education and artistic gratification.
Direct Action (1912)
When America passed the fugitive slave law compelling men to catch their fellows more brutally than runaway dogs, Canada, aristocratic, unrepublican Canada, still stretched her arms to those who might reach her. But there is no refuge upon earth for the enslaved sex. Right where we are, there we must dig our trenches, and win or die.
Sex Slavery (1890)
Topics Voltairine de Cleyre is quoted on
Works