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Those who have a spark of self-respect left, prefer open defiance, prefer crime to the emaciated, degraded position of poverty.

— Emma Goldman Anarchism and Other Essays (1910)

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More quotes by Emma Goldman

The free expression of the hopes and aspirations of a people is the greatest and only safety in a sane society.

I do not believe in God, because I believe in man.

Responding to audience questions during a speech in Detroit (1898)

Every daring attempt to make a great change in existing conditions, every lofty vision of new possibilities for the human race, has been labelled Utopian.

The most unpardonable sin in society is independence of thought.

Anarchism and Other Essays (1910)

Thinking men and women the world over are beginning to realize that patriotism is too narrow and limited a conception to meet the necessities of our time.

Anarchism and Other Essays (1910)

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We spend our lives fighting to get people very slightly more stupid than ourselves to accept truths that the great men have always known.

Doris Lessing The Golden Notebook (1962)

It is better to be poor and walk in integrity than to be stupid and speak lies.

Solomon

If a poor person envies a rich person, he is no better than the rich person.

Leo Tolstoy

The poor, by thinking unceasingly of money, reach the point of losing the spiritual advantages of non-possession, thereby sinking as low as the rich.

Emil Cioran The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Emma Goldman (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.