Now, being a girl, I was ashamed of my body and my lack of strength. So I tried to be a man.
AGNES SMEDLEYNo one yet knows what a man’s province is, and how far that province, as conceived of today, is artificial.
More Agnes Smedley Quotes
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It is not a national question concerning India any longer; it is purely international.
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I shot, rode, jumped, and took part in all the fights of the boys.
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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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There were fifty-four women and forty little boys with the Red Army prisoners, and I went daily to take care of them also.
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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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But settled things were enemies to me and soon lost their newness and color. The unknown called.
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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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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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Everybody calls everybody a spy, secretly, in Russia, and everybody is under surveillance. You never feel safe.
AGNES SMEDLEY -
For the first week of the Sian events I was a first aid worker in the streets of Sian.
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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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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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To die would have been beautiful. But I belong to those who do not die for the sake of beauty.
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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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Friendship is far more human.
AGNES SMEDLEY