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
I do not believe in God, because I believe in man. Whatever his mistakes, man has for thousands of years been working to undo the botched job your god has made.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote expresses a belief in human capability over divine intervention.
Emma Goldman emphasizes the importance of human agency and responsibility, suggesting that instead of relying on a higher power, it is humanity itself that has the potential to create change and improve the world, despite its imperfections. This reflects a perspective that values human effort and rationality over religious faith.
Themes
HumanityFaithAgencyBeliefChange
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about faith and responsibility in a community meeting.
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.
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
The truth is that, though we were justified by faith alone, the faith that justifies is never alone (it always produces fruit, 'good works,'...a transformed life).
J. I. PackerRead
Sincere friendship towards God, in all who believe him to be properly an intelligent, willing being, does most apparently, directly, and strongly incline to prayer; and it no less disposes the heart strongly to desire to have our infinitely glorious.
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Whether one traces his Americanism back three centuries to the Mayflower, or three years to the steerage, is not half so important as whether his Americanism of today is real and genuine. No matter by what various crafts we came here, we are all now in the same boat.
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Like the practice of breath control, meditation on the forms of God, repetition of mantras, food restrictions, etc., are but aids for rendering the mind quiescent.
Ramana MaharshiRead
Books and drafts mean something quite different for different thinkers. One collects in a book the lights he was able to steal and carry home swiftly out of the rays of some insight that suddenly dawned on him, while another thinker offers us nothing but shadows - images in black and grey of what had built up in his soul the day before.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
Each man must have his I; it is more necessary to him than bread; and if he does not find scope for it within the existing institutions he will be likely to make trouble.
Charles Horton CooleyRead