Agnes Smedley Quotes

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.

So I had to be the doctor to these wounded men until we could remove them to the hospital. There were fifty-four women and forty little boys with the Red Army prisoners, and I went daily to take care of them also.

My mother listened to all the news from the camp during the strike. 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.

Subjection of any kind and in any place is beneath the dignity of man … 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.

What a couple. I’m consumed into ashes. And he’s always raking up the ashes and setting them on fire again.

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. The subjects treated were technical Marxist theories.

Now, being a girl, I was ashamed of my body and my lack of strength. So I tried to be a man. I shot, rode, jumped, and took part in all the fights of the boys.

Like all my family and class, I considered it a sign of weakness to show affection; to have been caught kissing my mother would have been a disgrace, and to have shown affection for my father would have been a disaster.

For the first week of the Sian events I was a first aid worker in the streets of Sian.

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. It was a technical Marxist subject and I did not understand it nor did I know what questions to ask.

I believe only in money, not in love or tenderness. Love and tenderness meant only pain and suffering and defeat. I would not let it ruin me as it ruined others! I would speak only with money, hard money.

Professors could silence me then; they had figures, diagrams, maps, books…. 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.

I have no objection to a man being a man, however masculine that may be.

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.

In one hotel, the maid who built the fire fainted in our room. Exhaustion was the cause. We talked with her later and learned that she worked 17 hours a day and makes 95 marks a month – about 50 cents.

There’s something dreadfully decisive about a beheading.

But he like my mother, had certainly come to know that those who work the most do not make the most money. It was the fault of the rich, it seemed, but just how he did not know.

Much that we read of Russia is imagination and desire only.

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.

I have always detested the belief that sex is the chief bond between man and woman. Friendship is far more human.

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!

More and more do I see that only a successful revolution in India can break England’s back forever and free Europe itself. It is not a national question concerning India any longer; it is purely international.