What we anarchists contend for is a larger opportunity to develop the units in society, that mankind may possess the right as a sound being to develop that which is broadest, noblest, highest and best, unhandicapped by a centralized authority, where he shall have to wait for his permits to be signed, sealed, approved, and handed down to him before he can engage in the active pursuits of life with his fellow beings.
We know that after all, as we grow more enlightened under this larger liberty, we will grow to care less and less for that exact distribution of material wealth, which, on our greed-nurtured senses, seems now so impossible to think upon carelessly.
The man and woman of loftier intellects, in the present, think not so much of the riches to be gained by their efforts as of the good they can do for their fellow creatures.
--Lucy Parsons, "The Principles of Anarchism" (p. 34, Gale Ehrens, Editor, Lucy Parsons - Freedom, Equality & Solidarity: Writings & Speeches, 1878 - 1937, Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company, 2004)
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