When I was a girl, the West was still young, and the law of force, of physical force, was dominant.
AGNES SMEDLEYEverybody calls everybody a spy, secretly, in Russia, and everybody is under surveillance. You never feel safe.
More Agnes Smedley Quotes
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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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My mother listened to all the news from the camp during the strike.
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I would not let it ruin me as it ruined others! I would speak only with money, hard money.
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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 settled things were enemies to me and soon lost their newness and color. The unknown called.
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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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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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Everybody calls everybody a spy, secretly, in Russia, and everybody is under surveillance. You never feel safe.
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Now, being a girl, I was ashamed of my body and my lack of strength. So I tried to be a man.
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It is not a national question concerning India any longer; it is purely international.
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Much that we read of Russia is imagination and desire only.
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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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It was a technical Marxist subject and I did not understand it nor did I know what questions to ask.
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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.
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I forgot the songs they sung – and most of those songs are now dead; I erased their dialect from my tongue.
AGNES SMEDLEY






