Agnes Smedley's Quotes

Agnes Smedley (February 23, 1892 – May 6, 1950) was an American journalist, writer, and activist who supported the Chinese Communist Revolution. Raised in a poverty-stricken miner’s family in Missouri and Colorado, she dramatized the formation of her feminist and socialist consciousness in the autobiographical novel Daughter of Earth (1929).

Agnes Smedley's selected quotes:

Agnes Smedley about Today:

No one yet knows what a man's province is, and how far that province, as conceived ...
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Agnes Smedley about Free:

More and more do I see that only a successful revolution in India can break England's ...
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Agnes Smedley about Men:

I hate female men.

Agnes Smedley about Fire:

What a couple. I'm consumed into ashes. And he's always raking up the ashes and setting ...
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Agnes Smedley about Leader:

I joined another circle and the leader gave us a little leaflet in very small print, ...
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Agnes Smedley (February 23, 1892 – May 6, 1950) was an American journalist, writer, and protester who supported the Chinese Communist Revolution. Raised in a poverty-stricken miner’s intimates in Missouri and Colorado, she dramatized the formation of her feminist and socialist consciousness in the autobiographical novel Daughter of Earth (1929).

As a studious student during World War I, she organized support for the independence of India from the United Kingdom, receiving financial sustain from the running of Germany. After the achievement she went to Germany, where she met and worked like Indian nationalists. Between 1928 and 1941, she lived and worked in China, mainly as a journalist. During the first phase of the Chinese Civil War, she was based in Shanghai and published widely in preserve of the communist cause; later, during the Second Sino-Japanese War, she traveled with the Eighth Route Army and lived for a epoch in the communist base in Yan’an.

In adjunct to Daughter of Earth, Smedley’s publications count up four non-fiction books on China; reportage for newspapers in the United States, England, and Germany; and a biography of the Chinese communist general Zhu De. She is accused of creature a spy for the Comintern, and keen with such agents as Richard Sorge, who was along with her lovers.

All quotes from Agnes Smedley sorted alphabetically:

Agnes Smedley about Respect:

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.

Agnes Smedley about Nature:

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.

Agnes Smedley about Work:

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.

Agnes Smedley about You:

Everybody calls everybody a spy, secretly, in Russia, and everybody is under surveillance. You never feel safe.

Agnes Smedley about Strong:

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.

Agnes Smedley about Week:

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

Agnes Smedley about Children:

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.

Agnes Smedley about Living:

I feel like a person living on the brink of a volcano crater.

Agnes Smedley about Men:

I hate female men.

Agnes Smedley about Leader:

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.

Agnes Smedley about Man:

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

Agnes Smedley about Day:

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.

Agnes Smedley about Small:

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.

Agnes Smedley about Family:

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.

Agnes Smedley about Free:

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.

Agnes Smedley about Today:

No one yet knows what a man's province is, and how far that province, as conceived of today, is artificial.

Agnes Smedley about Mother:

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 about Imagination:

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

Agnes Smedley about Strength:

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.

Agnes Smedley about Women:

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.

Agnes Smedley about Women:

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.

Agnes Smedley about Strong:

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.

Agnes Smedley about Law:

When I was a girl, the West was still young, and the law of force, of physical force, was dominant.

Agnes Smedley about Fire:

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

Agnes Smedley about Love:

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!