Now, being a girl, I was ashamed of my body and my lack of strength. So I tried to be a man.
AGNES SMEDLEYIt is not a national question concerning India any longer; it is purely international.
More Agnes Smedley Quotes
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I have no objection to a man being a man, however masculine that may be.
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But there were years when, in search of what I thought was better, nobler things I denied these, my people, and my family.
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There’s something dreadfully decisive about a beheading.
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But I see no reason why a woman should not grow and develop in all those outlets which are suited to her nature, it matters not at all what they may be.
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More and more do I see that only a successful revolution in India can break England’s back forever and free Europe itself.
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Yet it is awful to love a person who is a torture to you. And a fascinating person who loves you and won’t hear of anything but your loving him and living right by his side through all eternity!
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When I was a girl, the West was still young, and the law of force, of physical force, was dominant.
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I was learning that books and diagrams can be evil things if they deaden the mind of man and make him blind or cynical before subjection of any kind.
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But here in New York I was ignorant, insignificant, unimportant–one in millions whose destiny concerned no one. New York did not even know of my existence. Nor did it care.
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There are many men – such as those often to be found among the Indians – who are refined until they have qualities often attributed to the female sex. Yet they are men, and strong ones.
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For the first week of the Sian events I was a first aid worker in the streets of Sian.
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I have loved and bitterness left me for that hour. But there are times when love itself is bitter.
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Like all my family and class, I considered it a sign of weakness to show affection; to have been caught kissing my mother would have been a disgrace, and to have shown affection for my father would have been a disaster.
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I have always detested the belief that sex is the chief bond between man and woman.
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Much that we read of Russia is imagination and desire only.
AGNES SMEDLEY






