Emma Goldman Quotes

There's nothing automatic about political change, about liberation.

The only thing that's going to free Huey is gun powder.

It is repression that creates the revolutionary spirit of freedom.

You can Jail a Revolutionary but you can't jail the Revolution. You can run a freedom fighter around the country, but you can't run freedom fighting around the country. You can murder a liberator, but you can't murder liberation.

People need to dance. I'd say dance at least twice a day. That's how to get your energy up and how you keep you revolutionary spirit going. It's Emma Goldman who said, "Any revolution where I can't dance is not my revolution." I think that's the revolution we want.

I knew I was happy when I was dancing.

It's got to be the ballot or the bullet. The ballot or the bullet. If you're afraid to use an expression like that, you should get back in the cotton patch, you should get back in the alley.

You can jail a Revolutionary, but you can't jail the Revolution.

Poetry is the lifeblood of rebellion, revolution, and the raising of consciousness.

A revolutionary poem will not tell you who or when to kill, what and when to burn, or even how to theorize. It reminds you... where and when and how you are living and might live, it is a wick of desire.

The Occupy Wall Street project feels like a burning ember that might light the torch of justice and inflame our longing for freedom.

There will be no prison which can hold our movement down.

The walls, the bars, the guns and the guards can never encircle or hold down the idea of the people.

My activism and sexual revolution in New York was a factor.

All the big revolutions, whether it's the Industrial Revolution, the Arab Spring, those changes happened by economic and social shifts brought about by the people's voices, and those things weren't voted for. Most of our changes today are brought about through technology, not by voting.

Revolution is the festival of the oppressed.

During my last voyage to America, I enjoyed the happiness of seeing that revolution completed, and, thinking of the one that would probably occur in France, I said in a speech to Congress, published everywhere except in the 'French Gazette,' 'May this revolution serve as a lesson to oppressors and as an example to the oppressed!'

An oppressed people will always rise.

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.

Dancing inspires my music. Having your girlfriends all together and just being free and happy.

I was sympathetic to virtually all groups that wanted to get away from the old system.

If I see somebody dancing really well, it can make me want to dance. Or it could be the music. But perhaps the thing I miss the most is that when you're dancing, everyday concerns vanish. It's a unique world.

My fellow revolutionaries, liberation is a noble cause. We must fight to obtain it.

How many of you are willing to go to jail for freedom?

History dictates that unresponsive governments force ordinary people to do extraordinary things.