On rare occasions one does hear of a miraculous case of a married couple falling in love after marriage, but on close examination it will be found that it is a mere adjustment to the inevitable.
Emma GoldmanRead
The most absurd apology for authority and law is that they serve to diminish crime. Aside from the fact that the State is itself the greatest criminal, breaking every written and natural law, stealing in the form of taxes, killing in the form of war and capital punishment, it has come to an absolute standstill in coping with crime. It has failed utterly to destroy or even minimize the horrible scourge of its own creation.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote criticizes the state's role in law and authority, arguing that it perpetuates crime rather than reducing it.
Emma Goldman's quote critiques the concept of authority and law by highlighting the hypocrisy of the state as a criminal entity that not only fails to prevent crime but also contributes to it through its own actions such as taxation and war. Goldman argues that the traditional justification for laws, which suggests they exist to control crime, is absurd given that the state, in many ways, embodies the greatest violations of law and morality itself, thereby underlining a deep contradiction within societal structures related to justice and governance.
Themes
AuthorityLawStateCrimeHypocrisyJustice
In practice
Example use cases
A speaker at a philosophy seminar could use this quote to illustrate the tension between state power and individual freedom.
More from Emma Goldman
All quotes →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.
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To the indefinite, uncertain mind of the American radical the most contradictory ideas and methods are possible. The result is a sad chaos in the radical movement, a sort of intellectual hash, which has neither taste nor character.
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John Burroughs has stated that experimental study of animals in captivity is absolutely useless. Their character, their habits, their appetites undergo a complete transformation when torn from their soil in field and forest. With human nature caged in a narrow space, whipped daily into submission, how can we speak of its potentialities?
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Anarchism is the only philosophy which brings to man the consciousness of himself; which maintains that God, the State, and society are non-existent, that their promises are null and void, since they can be fulfilled only through man's subordination.
Emma GoldmanRead
If love does not know how to give and take without restrictions, it is not love, but a transaction that never fails to lay stress on a plus and a minus.
Emma GoldmanRead
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