Voltairine de Cleyre

There is one common struggle against those who have appropriated the earth, the money, and the machines.

Workers, the most absolutely necessary part of the whole social structure, without whose services none can either eat, or clothe, or shelter himself, are just the ones who get the least to eat, to wear, and to be housed withal — to say …

The Puritans had accused the Quakers of "troubling the world by preaching peace to it." They refused to pay church taxes; they refused to bear arms; they refused to swear allegiance to any government.

What I say is, that the real non-resistants can believe in direct action only, never in political action. For the basis of all political action is coercion; even when the State does good things, it finally rests on a club, a gun, or a …

Those who, by the essence of their belief, are committed to Direct Action only are — just who? Why, the non-resistants; precisely those who do not believe in violence at all!

Every person who ever thought he had a right to assert, and went boldly and asserted it, himself, or jointly with others that shared his convictions, was a direct actionist.

Hail to the Mexican Revolution, victorious or defeated. And hail to the next that rises!

As the peoples always move,—as Life, which is greater than the peoples, always moves. And the business of the revolutionist, the Seeker for the Changes of Old Forms, the dreamer of Liberty and Plenty, is to be with them in their struggle, …

Once a great human demand is so made, it is never let go again. Future revolts will go on from there; they will never fall behind it.

Hold unto the last: that is what it means to have a Dominant Idea, which Circumstance cannot break. And such men make and unmake Circumstance.

Let us have Men, Men who will say a word to their souls and keep it — keep it not when it is easy, but keep it when it is hard

If you choose the liberty and pride and strength of the single soul, and the free fraternization of men, as the purpose which your life is to make manifest then do not sell it for tinsel.

Do not preach the straight and narrow way while going joyously upon the wide one. Preach the wide one, or do not preach at all; but do not fool yourself by saying you would like to help usher in a free society, but you cannot sacrifice an …

I would have men invest themselves with the dignity of an aim higher than the chase for wealth; choose a thing to do in life outside of the making of things, and keep it in mind, — not for a day, nor a year, but for a life-time.

But something he will attain, if he continues to aim high.

It is not to be supposed that any one will attain to the full realization of what he purposes, even when those purposes do not involve united action with others

Do not imagine that I speak of human life alone. The stamp of persistent or of shifting Will is visible in the grass-blade rooted in its clod of earth, as in the gossamer web of being that floats and swims far over our heads in the free …

In everything that lives, if one looks searchingly, is limned the shadow line of an idea

In that day there shall be neither kings nor Americans — only Men; over the whole earth, MEN.

As to the American tradition of non-meddling, Anarchism asks that it be carried down to the individual himself.

so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles …

Let the guarantee of free speech be in every man's determination to use it, and we shall have no need of paper declarations.

Anarchism says, Make no laws whatever concerning speech, and speech will be free

It is an American tradition that a standing army is a standing menace to liberty; in Jefferson's presidency the army was reduced to 3,000 men. It is American tradition that we keep out of the affairs of other nations. It is American …