Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature Quotes

“Ignorance is always brutal when it is backed by power.”
― Various, Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature

“Oh," I answered vaguely, "there are still reformers of all sorts in the world." "Reformers!" he cried, his face lighting up with a new interest. "Ah! you mean those profound thinkers who seek to cure every disease of the social body by means of legislation. Yes, yes! tell me about them! Society still believes in them?" "Believes in them!" I cried indignantly. "Surely it does. Why, the great political parties are responding to the cry of the downtrodden masses, and—" "Oh," he said dreamily, "they are still responding?" "What do you mean by still responding?" I demanded curtly. "Why, I remember that in my time, too, the people always responded. The party leaders would say to them that they were in a bad way and needed help. The people would cry out in joy to think their leaders had discovered this. Then the leaders would wink at each other and jump upon the platforms and explain to the people that what was needed was a new law of some sort. The people would weep for happiness at such wisdom and would beg their leaders to get together and make the law. And the law that the leaders would make when they got together was one that would put the people still more in their power. So that is still going on?" I recognized that he was ironical, but I answered with a sneer: "The people get what they deserve, and what they wish. They have only to demand through the ballot box, you know." "Ah, yes," he murmured with a grin, "I had forgotten the ballot box. Dear me! how could I have forgotten the ballot box?" Providentially the keeper came to notify me that my time was up, and I turned away. "One thing more," cried the prisoner; "is it still the case that the American people enjoy their freedom best when they are enslaved in some way?" "You are outrageous," I exclaimed; "the American people are not enslaved in any way. It is true they are restricted for their own good by those more capable of judging than they. That must always be the case." "I don't know about must," he sighed, "but I am sure it will always be the case as long as a man's idea of freedom is his ability to impose some slavish notion on his brother.”
― Various, Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature

“Which, in morals, leads away from superstition,    Which, in politics, leads away from government, and    Which, in art, leads away from Tradition.”
― Various, Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature

“Wherever the idea of guilt, the fear of sin prevails, the mind becomes traitor to the body: "I know him not and will have nothing to do with him." Whenever man entertains the belief in good and evil, he is bound to pretend the good and do the evil.”
― Various, Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature

“Wealth protects and animates art and literature, as the dew enlivens the fields." Nonsense! Wealth animates art and literature, as the whistle of the master animates the dog and makes him wag his tail.”
― Various, Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature

“Why if every practising polygamist went home from the Congress there would not be a quorum left to do business.”
― Various, Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature

“Is it not heavenly irony that God pressed the headman's sword of morals into the hands of the newspaper writers? Perhaps the great God Pan thought they would be the fittest to handle the sword, since they are so intimately associated with mental prostitution.”
― Various, Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature

“education of children is not synonymous with herdlike drilling and training. If education should really mean anything at all, it must insist upon the free growth and development of the innate forces and tendencies of the child. In this way alone can we hope for the free individual and eventually also for a free community, which shall make interference and coercion of human growth impossible.”
― Various, Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature

“Every institution of our day, the family, the State, our moral codes, sees in every strong, beautiful, uncompromising personality a deadly enemy; therefore every effort is being made to cramp human emotion and originality of thought in the individual into a straight-jacket from its earliest infancy; or to shape every human being according to one pattern; not into a well-rounded individuality, but into a patient work slave, professional automaton, tax-paying citizen, or righteous moralist.”
― Various, Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature

“Such is the blessing of this republic. We are not confronted by one czar of the size of an elephant, but by a hundred thousand czars, as small as mosquitoes, but equally disagreeable and annoying.”
― Various, Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature

“There is not the slightest hope that the authorities who, for a number of years, have permitted the violation of the law, will be put on trial, but the crime they have perpetrated is a weighty argument in favor of those who maintain that the State is not an independent institution, but a tool of the possessing class.”
― Various, Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature

“Must the Earth forever be arranged like an ocean steamer, with large, luxurious rooms and luxurious food for a select few, and underneath in the steerage, where the great mass can barely breathe from dirt and the poisonous air?”
― Various, Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature

“Whoever severs himself from Mother Earth and her flowing sources of life goes into exile.”
― Various, Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature