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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.

— 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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If the church ... does not make God's liberation of the oppressed central in its mission and proclamation, how can it rest easy with a condemned criminal as the dominant symbol of its message?

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It is better for a leader to make a mistake in forgiving than to make a mistake in punishing.

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It is the law of life that if you are kind to someone you feel happy. If you are cruel you are unhappy. And if you hurt someone, you will be hurt back.

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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.