QuoteProject
They do not want to know that centralization is not only the death-knell of liberty, but also of health and beauty, of art and science, all these being impossible in a clock-like, mechanical atmosphere.
Emma Goldman
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Centralization stifles freedom and creativity, negatively impacting health, beauty, art, and science.

In this quote, Emma Goldman argues that centralization undermines not just individual freedom but also the essence of creativity and innovation found in health, beauty, art, and science. She warns that a society governed by rigid structures resembles a mechanical system devoid of the vibrancy that comes from diverse expressions of liberty and creativity. Goldman's perspective suggests that a free and decentralized environment fosters a more enriching and healthy society.

Themes

CentralizationLibertyHealthBeautyArtScienceFreedom

In practice

Example use cases

This quote could be used in a speech advocating for individual rights and freedoms.

More from Emma Goldman

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 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.
Emma GoldmanRead
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.
Emma GoldmanRead
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?
Emma GoldmanRead
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

Similar quotes

If I were a dictator, religion and state would be separate. I swear by my religion. I will die for it. But it is my personal affair. The state has nothing to do with it. The state would look after your secular welfare, health, communications, foreign relations, currency and so on, but not your or my religion. That is everybody's personal concern!
Mahatma GandhiRead
The central function of imaginative literature is to make you realize that other people act on moral convictions different from your own.
William EmpsonRead
I believe it to be a fact that the colored people of this country know and understand the white people better than the white people know and understand them.
James Weldon JohnsonRead
I detect more good than evil in humanity._x000D_ _x000D_ Love lights more fires than hate extinguishes,_x000D_ _x000D_ And men grow better as the world grows old.
Ella Wheeler WilcoxRead
Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter, by peaceful or revolutionary means, into the making of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it.
Frederic BastiatRead
Some of my ancestors fought in the American Revolution. A few more wore red coats, a few wore blue coats, and the rest wore no coats at all. We never did figure out who won that war.
Edward AbbeyRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.

Quote by Emma Goldman | QuoteProject