Always before I had felt like a person, an individual, hopeful that I could mold my life according to some desire of my own.
AGNES SMEDLEYTo die would have been beautiful. But I belong to those who do not die for the sake of beauty.
More Agnes Smedley Quotes
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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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For the first week of the Sian events I was a first aid worker in the streets of Sian.
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I was ashamed of them and their ways of life. But now – yes, I love them; they are a part of my blood; they, with all their virtues and their faults, played a great part in forming my way of looking at life.
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I shot, rode, jumped, and took part in all the fights of the boys.
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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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Gambling in the mark has been the great indoor sport of the capitalists for months, and consequently food has increased by 25 to 100 per cent.
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No one yet knows what a man’s province is, and how far that province, as conceived of today, is artificial.
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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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New York was a new and strange world. Vast, impersonal, merciless.
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So I had to be the doctor to these wounded men until we could remove them to the hospital.
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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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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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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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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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I believe only in money, not in love or tenderness. Love and tenderness meant only pain and suffering and defeat.
AGNES SMEDLEY