When I was a girl, the West was still young, and the law of force, of physical force, was dominant.
AGNES SMEDLEYWhen I was a girl, the West was still young, and the law of force, of physical force, was dominant.
More Agnes Smedley Quotes
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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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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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So I had to be the doctor to these wounded men until we could remove them to the hospital.
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I feel like a person living on the brink of a volcano crater.
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I have no objection to a man being a man, however masculine that may be.
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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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My mother listened to all the news from the camp during the strike.
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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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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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And the woman who could win the respect of man was often the woman who could knock him down with her bare fists and sit on him until he yelled for help.
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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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Subjection of any kind and in any place is beneath the dignity of man.
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It is not a national question concerning India any longer; it is purely international.
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Professors could silence me then; they had figures, diagrams, maps, books.
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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.
AGNES SMEDLEY






