Agnes Smedley quotes

Everybody calls everybody a spy, secretly, in Russia, and everybody is under surveillance. You never feel safe. (Agnes Smedley)
I feel like a person living on the brink of a volcano crater. View quote
Agnes Smedley
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. View quote
Agnes Smedley
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! View quote
Agnes Smedley
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. View quote
Agnes Smedley
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. View quote
Agnes Smedley
I have no objection to a man being a man, however masculine that may be. View quote
Agnes Smedley
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. View quote
Agnes Smedley
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. View quote
Agnes Smedley
When I was a girl, the West was still young, and the law of force, of physical force, was dominant. View quote
Agnes Smedley
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. (Agnes Smedley)
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. View quote
Agnes Smedley
For the first week of the Sian events I was a first aid worker in the streets of Sian. View quote
Agnes Smedley
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. View quote
Agnes Smedley
Much that we read of Russia is imagination and desire only. View quote
Agnes Smedley
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. View quote
Agnes Smedley
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. View quote
Agnes Smedley
Germany is in terrible condition this year. This is particularly true of the working masses, who are so undernourished that tuberculosis is having a rich harvest, particularly of adolescent children. View quote
Agnes Smedley
No one yet knows what a man's province is, and how far that province, as conceived of today, is artificial. View quote
Agnes Smedley
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. View quote
Agnes Smedley
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. (Agnes Smedley)
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. View quote
Agnes Smedley
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. View quote
Agnes Smedley
For months it seemed that a revolution was certain. But instead, slavery seems more likely now. The working class no longer has the physical resistance for a revolution, and the Entente is too strong, and Russia is too weak. View quote
Agnes Smedley
I hate female men. View quote
Agnes Smedley