Now, being a girl, I was ashamed of my body and my lack of strength. So I tried to be a man.
AGNES SMEDLEYSubjection of any kind and in any place is beneath the dignity of man.
More Agnes Smedley Quotes
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I believe only in money, not in love or tenderness. Love and tenderness meant only pain and suffering and defeat.
AGNES SMEDLEY -
She said little, especially when my father or the men who worked for him were about I remember her instinctive and unhesitating sympathy for the miners.
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There’s something dreadfully decisive about a beheading.
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I feel like a person living on the brink of a volcano crater.
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It is not a national question concerning India any longer; it is purely international.
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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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In the little hall leading to it was a rack holding various Socialist or radical newspapers, tracts, and pamphlets in very small print and on very bad paper.
AGNES SMEDLEY -
The subjects treated were technical Marxist theories.
AGNES SMEDLEY -
Much that we read of Russia is imagination and desire only.
AGNES SMEDLEY -
It was a technical Marxist subject and I did not understand it nor did I know what questions to ask.
AGNES SMEDLEY -
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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Everybody calls everybody a spy, secretly, in Russia, and everybody is under surveillance. You never feel safe.
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To die would have been beautiful. But I belong to those who do not die for the sake of beauty.
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I joined another circle and the leader gave us a little leaflet in very small print, asking us to read it carefully and then come prepared to ask questions.
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The highest joy is to fight by the side of those who for any reason of their own making or ours, are unable to develop to full human stature.
AGNES SMEDLEY






