When we can’t dream any longer we die.

Meaning of the quote

When we stop believing in and thinking about our dreams, we stop living. This quote by Lithuanian activist Emma Goldman means that having hopes, goals, and aspirations is essential for feeling alive and motivated. If we give up on our dreams, we also give up on life itself. The quote encourages us to keep dreaming and pursuing our passions, no matter what challenges we face.

About Emma Goldman

Emma Goldman was a Lithuanian-born anarchist revolutionary and political activist who played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist philosophy in North America and Europe in the early 20th century. She was a renowned lecturer on topics like women’s rights, social issues, and anarchism, and founded the anarchist journal Mother Earth.

More about the author

More quotes from Emma Goldman

The individual whose vision encompasses the whole world often feels nowhere so hedged in and out of touch with his surroundings as in his native land.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

Since every effort in our educational life seems to be directed toward making of the child a being foreign to itself, it must of necessity produce individuals foreign to one another, and in everlasting antagonism with each other.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

Puritanism, in whatever expression, is a poisonous germ. On the surface everything may look strong and vigorous; yet the poison works its way persistently, until the entire fabric is doomed.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

The demand for equal rights in every vocation of life is just and fair; but, after all, the most vital right is the right to love and be loved.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

No real social change has ever been brought about without a revolution… revolution is but thought carried into action.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

Anarchism is the great liberator of man from the phantoms that have held him captive; it is the arbiter and pacifier of the two forces for individual and social harmony.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

All claims of education notwithstanding, the pupil will accept only that which his mind craves.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

It is essential that we realize once and for all that man is much more of a sex creature than a moral creature. The former is inherent, the other is grafted on.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man’s right to his body, or woman’s right to her soul.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

Politics is the reflex of the business and industrial world.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

Idealists are foolish enough to throw caution to the winds. They have advanced mankind and have enriched the world.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

The State is the altar of political freedom and, like the religious altar, it is maintained for the purpose of human sacrifice.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

Before we can forgive one another, we have to understand one another.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

Only when human sorrows are turned into a toy with glaring colors will baby people become interested – for a while at least. The people are a very fickle baby that must have new toys every day.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

The most unpardonable sin in society is independence of thought.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

The higher mental development of woman, the less possible it is for her to meet a congenial male who will see in her, not only sex, but also the human being, the friend, the comrade and strong individuality, who cannot and ought not lose a single trait of her character.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

The most violent element in society is ignorance.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

Morality and its victim, the mother – what a terrible picture! Is there indeed anything more terrible, more criminal, than our glorified sacred function of motherhood?

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

Merely external emancipation has made of the modern woman an artificial being. Now, woman is confronted with the necessity of emancipating herself from emancipation, if she really desires to be free.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

Idealists foolish enough to throw caution to the winds have advanced mankind and have enriched the world.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

I’d rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

To the indefinite, uncertain mind of the American radical the most contradictory ideas and methods are possible. The result is a sad chaos in the radical movement, a sort of intellectual hash, which has neither taste nor character.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

Every daring attempt to make a great change in existing conditions, every lofty vision of new possibilities for the human race, has been labeled Utopian.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

The ultimate end of all revolutionary social change is to establish the sanctity of human life, the dignity of man, the right of every human being to liberty and well-being.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

The motto should not be: Forgive one another; rather understand one another.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

Direct action is the logical, consistent method of Anarchism.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

Someone has said that it requires less mental effort to condemn than to think.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

Woman, essentially a purist, is naturally bigoted and relentless in her effort to make others as good as she thinks they ought to be.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

To the moralist prostitution does not consist so much in the fact that the woman sells her body, but rather that she sells it out of wedlock.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

Crime is naught but misdirected energy.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

On rare occasions one does hear of a miraculous case of a married couple falling in love after marriage, but on close examination it will be found that it is a mere adjustment to the inevitable.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

Heaven must be an awfully dull place if the poor in spirit live there.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

The political arena leaves one no alternative, one must either be a dunce or a rogue.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

One cannot be too extreme in dealing with social ills; the extreme thing is generally the true thing.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

Prostitution, although hounded, imprisoned, and chained, is nevertheless the greatest triumph of Puritanism.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

There is no hope even that woman, with her right to vote, will ever purify politics.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

When we can’t dream any longer we die.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

No great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law. How can it be within the law? The law is stationary. The law is fixed. The law is a chariot wheel which binds us all regardless of conditions or place or time.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

If love does not know how to give and take without restrictions, it is not love, but a transaction that never fails to lay stress on a plus and a minus.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy, the kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

Women need not always keep their mouths shut and their wombs open.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist

Free love? as if love is anything but free. Man has bought brains, but all the millions in the world have failed to buy love.

Emma Goldman

Russian anarchist