But which is the State's essential function, aggression or defence, few seem to know or care.
Benjamin TuckerRead
There is no freedom that I would grant to any man that I would refuse to woman, and there is no freedom that I would refuse to either man or woman except the freedom to invade ... whoever has the ballot has the freedom to invade, and whoever wants the ballot wants the freedom to invade. Give woman equality with man, by all means; but do it by taking power from man, not giving it to woman.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote advocates for equality by emphasizing that true freedom for all must not involve the oppression of others.
Benjamin Tucker's quote highlights the complexities of freedom and equality, arguing that granting rights to one gender should not come at the cost of denying rights to another. It suggests that achieving gender equality requires a re-examination of power dynamics rather than simply bestowing new powers upon women while allowing existing inequalities to persist.
Themes
FreedomEqualityGenderPowerRights
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate about women's rights, this quote could illustrate the argument for equality without oppression.
More from Benjamin Tucker
All quotes →The main question ... is not what motive inspired the law, but what it will be possible for men of bad motive to do with the law.
Benjamin TuckerRead
Government is the assumption of authority over a given area and all within it, exercised generally for the double purpose of more complete oppression of its subjects and extension of its boundaries.
Benjamin TuckerRead
Voting is merely a labor-saving device for ascertaining on which side force lies and bowing to the inevitable... It is neither more nor less than a paper representative of the bayonet, the bully, and the bullet.
Benjamin TuckerRead
To force a man to pay for the violation of his own liberty is indeed an addition of insult to injury.
Benjamin TuckerRead
Anarchism does not repudiate the right of ownership, but it has a conception thereof sufficiently different from [others'] to include the possibility of an end of that social organization which will arise, not out of the ruins of government, but out of the transformation of government into voluntary association for defence.
Benjamin TuckerRead
Similar quotes
...while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty.
Arthur Conan DoyleRead
She was incomprehensible, for, in her, soul and spirit were one - the beauty of her body was the essence of her soul. She was that unity sought for by philosophers through many centuries. In this outdoor waiting room of winds and stars she had been sitting for a hundred years, at peace in the contemplation of herself.
F. Scott FitzgeraldRead
The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog.
Gilbert K. ChestertonRead
Everything with me is either worship and passion or pity and understanding. I hate rarely, though when I hate. I hate murderously.
Anais NinRead
I would like you to teach [the orcs] civilised behaviour," said Ladyship coldly. He appeared to consider this. "Yes of course, I think that would be quite possible," he said. "And who would you send to teach the humans?
Terry PratchettRead
It's all about time, dimwit time, inferior time, people checking watches and other devices, other reminders. This is time draining out of our lives. Cities were built to measure time, to remove time from nature. There's an endless counting down, he said. When you strip away surfaces, when you see into it, what's left is terror. This is the thing that literature was meant to cure. The epic poem, the bedtime story.
Don DelilloRead