“As long as the working-people fold hands and pray the gods in Washington to give them work, so long they will not get it.”
In Defense of Emma Goldman and the Right of Expropriation (1893)
Context: As long as the working-people fold hands and pray the gods in Washington to give them work, so long they will not get it. So long as they tramp the streets, whose stones they lay, whose filth they clean, whose sewers they dig, yet upon which they must not stand too long lest the policeman bid them "move on"; as long as they go from factory to factory, begging for the opportunity to be a slave, receiving the insults of bosses and foremen, getting the old "no," the old shake of the head, in these factories they built, whose machines they wrought; so long as they consent to herd like cattle, in the cities, driven year after year, more and more, off the mortgaged land, the land they cleared, fertilized, cultivated, rendered of value; so long as they stand shivering, gazing thro' plate glass windows at overcoats, which they made, but cannot buy, starving in the midst of food they produced but cannot have; so long as they continue to do these things vaguely relying upon some power outside themselves, be it god, or priest, or politician, or employer, or charitable society, to remedy matters, so long deliverance will be delayed. When they conceive the possibility of a complete international federation of labor, whose constituent groups shall take possession of land, mines, factories, all the instruments of production, issue their own certificates of exchange, and, in short, conduct their own industry without regulative interference from law-makers or employers, then we may hope for the only help which counts for aught — Self-Help; the only condition which can guarantee free speech (and no paper guarantee needed).
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Voltairine de Cleyre 78
American anarchist writer and feminist 1866–1912Related quotes
Worst thing about TV http://www.mid-day.com/articles/world-television-day-small-screen-wonders/241272
“If people had understood the greatness of those works, they would have destroyed them long ago.”
Liquidation (2003)
Context: That evening he talked about Leonardo and Michelangelo. It is impossible to place them in the human world, he said. It is impossible to comprehend how anything that attests to greatness has survived; it is obviously a result of innumerable chance events and of human incomprehension, he said. If people had understood the greatness of those works, they would have destroyed them long ago. Fortunately, people have lost their flair for greatness and only their flair for murder has persisted, though undoubtedly they have refined the latter, their flair for murder, to an art, almost to point of greatness, he said.
“Put your hands to work and give your hearts to God.”
The Communistic Societies of the United States (1875)
Speech on BBC radio on the General Strike (8 May 1926), as quoted in Baldwin : A Biography by Keith Middlemas and John Barnes (1969), p. 415 <!-- Weidenfeld and Nicolson -->
1926
Context: I am a man of peace. I am longing and working and praying for peace, but I will not surrender the safety and security of the British constitution. You placed me in power eighteen months ago by the largest majority accorded to any party for many, many years. Have I done anything to forfeit that confidence? Cannot you trust me to ensure a square deal to secure even justice between man and man?
Reflecting on his later career
The Eastwood Factor (Extended Edition). [DVD]. Warner Home Video. June 1, 2010. Event occurs at 1:26:15.
Source: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
“Since the working-class lives from hand to mouth, it buys as long as it has the means to buy.”
Vol. II, Ch. XX, p. 449.
Das Kapital (Buch II) (1893)
As quoted in Divine Harmony: The Life and Teachings of Pythagoras by John Strohmeier and Peter Westbrook. (1999)
The Golden Verses
The Glory of the Garden http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/verse/english_history/glorygarden.html, Stanza 8.
Other works