Emma Goldman: "Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy name! The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of human nature.
Yet, how can any one speak of it today, with every soul in a prison, with every heart fettered, wounded, and maimed? John Burroughs has stated that experimental study of animals in captivity is absolutely useless.
Their character, their habits, their appetites undergo a complete transformation when torn from their soil in field and forest. With human nature caged in a narrow space, whipped daily into submission, how can we speak of its potentialities?
Freedom, expansion, opportunity, and, above all, peace and repose, alone can teach us the real dominant factors of human nature and all its wonderful possibilities."
Emma Goldman in "Anarchism: What It Really Stands For" (1910)
