To die would have been beautiful. But I belong to those who do not die for the sake of beauty.
AGNES SMEDLEYI have always detested the belief that sex is the chief bond between man and woman.
More Agnes Smedley Quotes
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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 feel like a person living on the brink of a volcano crater.
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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 shot, rode, jumped, and took part in all the fights of the boys.
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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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My mother listened to all the news from the camp during the strike.
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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 settled things were enemies to me and soon lost their newness and color. The unknown called.
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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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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 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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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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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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I have always detested the belief that sex is the chief bond between man and woman.
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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.
AGNES SMEDLEY






