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.
AGNES SMEDLEYFriendship is far more human.
More Agnes Smedley Quotes
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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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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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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.
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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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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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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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Always before I had felt like a person, an individual, hopeful that I could mold my life according to some desire of my own.
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Thousands of women are crushed and made inarticulate by that system and never develop as their natures would force them to develop were they in a decent environment.
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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 forgot the songs they sung – and most of those songs are now dead; I erased their dialect from my tongue.
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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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Professors could silence me then; they had figures, diagrams, maps, books.
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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.
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I have loved and bitterness left me for that hour. But there are times when love itself is bitter.
AGNES SMEDLEY