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
No real social change has ever been brought about without a revolution... revolution is but thought carried into action.
Interpretation
Social change requires active engagement and revolutionary thought.
Emma Goldman's quote emphasizes the idea that for any significant social change to occur, it must be driven by revolutionary ideas that motivate people to take action. It suggests that change does not happen simply through passive thought or discussion; instead, it requires people to translate their revolutionary ideas into concrete actions that can lead to transformation in society.
In practice
In a speech about social justice, a speaker may use this quote to inspire the audience to take action.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Every important social movement reconfigures the world in the imagination. What was obscure comes forward, lies are revealed, memory shaken, new delineations drawn over the old maps: it is from this new way of seeing the present that hope emerges for the future...Let us begin to imagine the worlds we would like to inhabit, the long lives we will share, and the many futures in our hands.
We look in our own backyard and say, 'How do we help at-risk families, at risk youth? How do we think through some of the problems affecting the Pacific Northwest and make some change there?'
The invisible is only another unexplored country, a brave new world.
Unless there's a personal transformation, there can be no social transformation.
We are here to change the world with small acts of thoughtfulness done daily rather than with one great breakthrough.
Nowadays you can go anywhere in the world in a few hours, and nothing is fabulous any more.
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