Kaunas, Lithuania

Emma Goldman, a political activist who played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist philosophy in the first half of the twentieth century, was born 140 years ago in Kovno (now Kaunas). An outspoken writer and lecturer on anarchist philosophy, women’s rights, and social issues, Goldman was imprisoned several times after emigrating to the U.S. for “inciting to riot,” illegally distributing information about birth control, and for conspiring to “induce persons not to register” for the newly instated draft (in 1917). Eventually she was deported to Russia (where she initially supported the Bolshevik revolution—later she opposed the Soviet use of violence and repression of individual voices), and then lived in England, Canada, and France.

During her life, Goldman was lionized as a free-thinking “rebel woman” by admirers, and derided by critics as an advocate of politically motivated violence and anarchistic revolution. Her writing and lectures spanned a wide variety of issues, including prisons, atheism, freedom of speech, militarism, capitalism, marriage, free love, homosexuality, and gender politics. Following decades of obscurity, Goldman’s iconic status was revived in the 1970s, when feminist and anarchist scholars rekindled popular interest in her life.

Some quotables she left us with:

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Before we can forgive one another, we have to understand one another.

No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy, the kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure.

All claims of education notwithstanding,
the pupil will accept only that which his mind craves.

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

Idealists are foolish enough to throw caution to the winds.
They have advanced mankind and have enriched the world. 

The strongest bulwark of authority is uniformity;
the least divergence from it is the greatest crime.

The individual whose vision encompasses the whole world often feels nowhere so hedged in and out of touch with his surroundings as in his native land.

Heaven must be an awfully dull place if the poor in spirit live there.

Puritanism, in whatever expression, is a poisonous germ. On the surface everything may look strong and vigorous; yet the poison works its way persistently, until the entire fabric is doomed.

When we can’t dream any longer, we die.

Someone has said that it requires less mental effort
to condemn than to think.

The most unpardonable sin in society is independence of thought.

The most violent element in society is ignorance.

If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.

If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.

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Images: from archival police mug-shots of Emma Goldman taken in Philadelphia (1893) and Chicago (1901).