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
Only when human sorrows are turned into a toy with glaring colors will baby people become interested - for a while at least. The people are a very fickle baby that must have new toys every day.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that people are often distracted by superficial pleasures and fail to engage with deeper issues.
Emma Goldman's quote highlights the tendency of society to seek novelty and distraction rather than to confront serious problems. The metaphor of 'baby people' suggests that many individuals approach life with a childish desire for bright, entertaining distractions instead of grappling with the complexities and sorrows of human existence. This observation serves as a critique of our culture’s fickleness and superficiality, wherein lasting engagement is often replaced by a constant search for the next shiny 'toy' or distraction.
Themes
SocietyDistractionSuperficialityHuman NatureCritique
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about consumer culture and how it impacts our values.
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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