If you have any doubts that we live in a society controlled by men, try reading down the index of contributors to a volume of quotations, looking for women's names. — Elaine Gill
I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them,
was often a woman. — Virginia Woolf
The test for whether or not you can hold a job should not be the arrangement of
your chromosomes. - Bella Abzug
Our struggle today is not to have a female Einstein get appointed as an assistant
professor. It is for a woman schlemiel to get as quickly promoted as a male
schlemiel. - Bella Abzug
Women have been trained to speak softly and carry a lipstick. Those days are over. - Bella Abzug
Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. - Abigail Adams
Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could. - Abigail Adams
If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation. - Abigail Adams
It is really mortifying, sir, when a woman possessed of a common share of understanding considers the difference of education between the male and female sex, even in those families where education is attended
to...Nay why should your sex wish for such a disparity in those whom they one day intend for companions and associates. Pardon me, sir, if I cannot help sometimes suspecting that this neglect arises in some
measure from an ungenerous jealousy of rivals near the throne. - Abigail Adams
Great necessities call out great virtues. - Abigail Adams
Men of sense in all ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your sex. - Abigail Adams
The only chance for much intellectual improvement in the female sex, was to be found in the families of the educated class and in occasional intercourse with the learned. -Abigail Adams (1817)
I regret the trifling narrow contracted education of the females of my own country. -Abigail Adams
These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. - Abigial Adams
I am more and more convinced that Man is a dangerous creature, and that power whether vested in many or a few is ever grasping, and like the grave cries give, give.
The great fish swallow up the small, and he who is most strenuous for the Rights of the people, when vested with power, is as eager after the prerogatives of Government.
You tell me of degrees of perfection to which Humane Nature is capable of arriving, and I believe it, but at the same time lament that our admiration should arise from the scarcity of the instances. -Abigail Adams (letter, 1775)
Independence is happiness. - Susan B. Anthony
Men their rights and nothing more; women their rights and nothing less. -Susan B. Anthony
Failure is impossible. -Susan B. Anthony
Modern invention has banished the spinning wheel, and the same law of progress
makes the woman of today a different woman from her grandmother. -Susan B. Anthony
It would be ridiculous to talk of male and female atmospheres, male and female
springs or rains, male and female sunshine . . . . how much more ridiculous is
it in relation to mind, to soul, to thought, where there is as undeniably no
such thing as sex, to talk of male and female education and of male and female
schools. -Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton
[T]here never will be complete equality until women themselves help to make
laws and elect lawmakers. -Susan B. Anthony
The rank and file are not philosophers, they are not educated to think for
themselves, but simply to accept, unquestioned, whatever comes. -Susan B. Anthony
Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and
social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest
must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly
and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted
ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences. -Susan B. Anthony
about laws prohibiting abortions:
Much as I deplore the horrible crime of child-murder, earnestly as I desire its
suppression, I cannot believe...that such a law would have the desired effect.
It seems to me to be only mowing off the top of the noxious weed, while the root
remains. We want prevention, not merely punishment. We must reach the root of the
evil, and destroy it. -Susan B. Anthony
To my certain knowledge this crime is not confined to those whose love of ease,
amusement and fashionable life leads them to desire immunity from the cares of
children: but is practiced by those whose inmost souls revolt from the dreadful
deed, and in whose hearts the maternal feeling is pure and undying. What, then
has driven these women to the desperation necessary to force them to commit such
a deed? This question being answered, I believe, we shall have such an insight
into the matter as to be able to talk more clearly of a remedy.
-Susan B. Anthony Revolution editorial, 1869
The fact is, women are in chains, and their servitude is all the more debasing
because they do not realize it. -Susan B. Anthony
The brain is not, and cannot be, the sole or complete organ of thought and feeling.
-Alice Stone Blackwell
Justice is better than chivalry if we cannot have both. -Alice Stone Blackwell
A woman finds the natural lay of the land almost unconsciously; and not feeling
it incumbent on her to be guide and philosopher to any successor, she takes little
pains to mark the route by which she is making her ascent. -Alice Stone Blackwell
Mr. Darwin ... has failed to hold definitely before his mind the principle that
the difference of sex, whatever it may consist in, must itself be subject to natural
selection and evolution. -Antoinette Brown Blackwell
Work, alternated with needful rest, is the salvation of man or woman.-Antoinette Brown Blackwell
If woman's sole responsibility is of the domestic type, one class will be crushed
by it, and the other throw it off as a badge of poverty. The poor man's motto,
"Women's work is never done," leads inevitably to its antithesis -- ladies' work
is never begun. -Antoinette Brown Blackwell
Every nursing mother, in the midst of her little dependent brood, has far more
right to whine, sulk or scold, as temperament dictates, because beefsteak and
coffee are not prepared for her and exactly to her taste, than any man ever had
or ever can have during the present stage of human evolution. -Antoinette Brown Blackwell
... you asked me one day if it seemed like giving up much for your sake. Only leave
me free, as free as you are and everyone ought to be, and it is giving up nothing.
-Antoinette Brown Blackwell
If society will not admit of woman's free development, then society must be remodeled. -Elizabeth Blackwell
A blank wall of social and professional antagonism faces the woman physician that
forms a situation of singular and painful loneliness, leaving her without support,
respect or professional counsel. -Elizabeth Blackwell
The world has never yet seen a truly great and virtuous nation, because in the
degradation of women, the very fountains of life are poisoned at their source. -Lucretia Mott
I have no idea of submitting tamely to injustice inflicted either on me or on the
slave. I will oppose it with all the moral powers with which I am endowed. I am
no advocate of passivity. -Lucretia Mott
This world taught woman nothing skillful and then said her work was valueless.
It permitted her no opinions and said she did not know how to think. It forbade
her to speak in public, and said the sex had no orators. -Carrie Chapman Catt
When a just cause reaches its flood-tide, as ours has done in that country,
whatever stands in the way must fall before its overwhelming power. -Carrie Chapman Catt
There are two kinds of restrictions upoin human liberty -- the restraint of law
and that of custom. No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom
supported by public opinion. -Carrie Chapman Catt
Just as the world war is no white man's war, but every man's war, so is the struggle
for woman suffrage no white woman's struggle, but every woman's struggle. -Carrie Chapman Catt
The answer to one is the answer to all. Government by "the people" is expedient
or it is not. If it is expedient, then obviously all the people must be included. -Carrie Chapman Catt
Everybody counts in applying democracy. And there will never be a true democracy
until every responsible and law-abiding adult in it, without regard to race, sex,
color or creed has his or her own inalienable and unpurchasable voice in government. -Carrie Chapman Catt
Frances Perkins: "The door might not be opened to a woman again for a long, long
time and I had a kind of duty to other women to walk in and sit down on the chair
that was offered, and so establish the right of others long hence and far distant
in geography to sit in the high seats." (to Carrie Chapman Catt)
The argument of the broken pane of glass is the most valuable argument in modern
politics. -Emmeline Pankhurst
Trust in God: She will provide. -Emmeline Pankhurst
As long as women consent to be unjustly governed, they will be; but directly women
say: "We withhold our consent," we will not be governed any longer as long as government
is unjust. -Emmeline Pankhurst
It always seems to me when the anti-suffrage members of the Government criticize
militancy in women that it is very like beasts of prey reproaching gentler animals
who turn in desperate resistance when at the point of death. -Emmeline Pankhurst
Whatever the theories may be of woman's dependence on man, in the supreme moments
of her life he can not bear her burdens. -Elizabeth Cady Stanton(from "Solitude of Self")
Nature never repeats herself, and the possibilities of one human soul will never
be found in another. -Elizabeth Cady Stanton(from "Solitude of Self")
Because man and woman are the complement of one another, we need woman's thought
in national affairs to make a safe and stable government. -Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Woman will always be dependent until she holds a purse of her own. -Elizabeth Cady Stanton
I am always busy, which is perhaps the chief reason why I am always well.-Elizabeth Cady Stanton
A mind always in contact with children and servants, whose aspirations and ambitions
rise no higher than the roof that shelters it, is necessarily dwarfed in its proportions. -Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Women have crucified the Mary Wollstonecrafts, the Fanny Wrights, and the George
Sands of all ages. Men mock us with the fact and say we are ever cruel to each other.-Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Men say we are ever cruel to each other. Let us end this ignoble record and
henceforth stand by womanhood. If Victoria Woodhull must be crucified, let men drive
the spikes and plait the crown of thorns. -Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The new religion will teach the dignity of human nature and its infinite
possibilities for development. It will teach the solidarity of the race o that
all must rise and fall as one. Its creed will be justice, liberty, equality for all
the children of earth. -Elizabeth Cady Stanton [at the 1893 Parliament of the World's Religions]
It requires philosophy and heroism to rise above the opinion of the wise men of
all nations and races. -Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Womanhood is the great fact in her life; wifehood and motherhood are but incidental
relations. -Elizabeth Cady Stanton
I asked them why one read in the synagogue service every week the "I thank thee,
O Lord, that I was not born a woman." "It is not meant in an unfriendly spirit,
and it is not intended to degrade or humiliate women." "But it does, nevertheless.
Suppose the service read, 'I think thee, O Lord, that I was not born a jackass.'
Could that be twisted in any way into a compliment to the jackass?" -Elizabeth Cady Stanton
So long as women are slaves, men will be knaves. -Elizabeth Cady Stanton
It would be ridiculous to talk of male and female atmospheres, male and female
springs or rains, male and female sunshine . . . . how much more ridiculous is it
in relation to mind, to soul, to thought, where there is as undeniably no such
thing as sex, to talk of male and female education and of male and female schools.
-Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The prejudice against color, of which we hear so much, is no stronger than that
against sex. It is produced by the same cause, and manifested very much in the
same way. The negro's skin and the woman's sex are both prima facie evidence that
they were intended to be in subjection to the white Saxon man. -Elizabeth Cady Stanton
I think if women would indulge more freely in vituperation, they would enjoy ten
times the health they do. It seems to me they are suffering from repression. -Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Nature never repeats herself, and the possibilities of one human soul will never
be found in another. -Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Nature never repeats herself, and the possibilities of one human soul will never
be found in another. -Elizabeth Cady Stanton
I think, with never-ending gratitude, that the young women of today do not and can
never know at what price their right to free speech and to speak at all in public
has been earned. -Lucy Stone(1893)
"We, the people of the United States." Which "We, the people"? The women were not included. -Lucy Stone
I expect to plead not for the slave only, but for suffering humanity everywhere.
Especially do I mean to labor for the elevation of my sex. -Lucy Stone(1847)
I was a woman before I was an abolitionist. I must speak for the women. -Lucy Stone
... for these years I can only be a mother -- no trivial thing, either. -Lucy Stone
But I do believe that a woman's truest place is in a home, with a husband and with
children, and with large freedom, pecuniary freedom, personal freedom, and the right
to vote. -Lucy Stone to her adult daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell
In education, in marriage, in religion, in everything disappointment is the lot of
women. It shall be the business of my life to deepen that disappointment in every
woman's heart until she bows down to it no longer. -Lucy Stone
We want rights. The flour-merchant, the house-builder, and the postman charge us
no less on account of our sex; but when we endeavor to earn money to pay all these,
then, indeed, we find the difference. -Lucy Stone
Too much has already been said and written about women's sphere. Leave women, then,
to find their sphere. -Lucy Stone
Common sense is seeing things as they are; and doing things as they ought to be. -Harriet Beecher Stowe
If women want any rights they had better take them, and say nothing about it. -Harriet Beecher Stowe
The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone. -Harriet Beecher Stowe
It's a matter of taking the side of the weak against the strong, something the best people have always done. -Harriet Beecher Stowe
What makes saintliness in my view, as distinguished from ordinary goodness, is a
certain quality of magnanimity and greatness of soul that brings life within the
circle of the heroic. -Harriet Beecher Stowe
Everyone confesses that exertion which brings out all the powers of body and mind
is the best thing for us; but most people do all they can to get rid of it, and as
a general rule nobody does much more than circumstances drive them to do. -Harriet Beecher Stowe
One would like to be grand and heroic, if one could; but if not, why try at all?
One wants to be very something, very great, very heroic; or if not that, then at
least very stylish and very fashionable. It is this everlasting mediocrity that bores me. -Harriet Beecher Stowe
One of the greatest reforms that could be, in these reforming days . . . would be
to have women architects. The mischief with the houses built to rent is that they
are all male contrivances. -Harriet Beecher Stowe
When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you till it seems you
could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then for that is just the place
and time that the tide will turn. -Harriet Beecher Stowe
I no more thought of style or literary excellence than the mother who rushes into
the street and cries for help to save her children from a burning house, thinks
of the teachings of the rhetorician or the elocutionist. -Harriet Beecher Stowe
I am speaking now of the highest duty we owe our friends, the noblest, the most
sacred--that of keeping their own nobleness, goodness, pure and incorrupt. . . .
If we let our friend become cold and selfish and exacting without a remonstrance,
we are no true lover, no true friend. -Harriet Beecher Stowe
Home is a place not only of strong affections, but of entire unreserve; it is life's
undress rehearsal, its backroom, its dressing room, from which we go forth to more
careful and guarded intercourse, leaving behind us much debris of cast-off and everyday
clothing. -Harriet Beecher Stowe
Although mother's bodily presence disappeared from our circle, I think that her
memory and example had more influence in molding her family, in deterring from evil
and exciting to good, than the living presence of many mothers. It was a memory that
met us everywhere; for every person in the town seemed to have been so impressed
by her character and life that they constantly reflected some portion of it back
upon us. -Harriet Beecher Stowe
From Dorothy Parker:
The pure and worthy Mrs. Stowe
Is one we all are proud to know
As mother, wife, and authoress-
Thank God, I am content with less!
From the end of Uncle Tom's Cabin:
On the shores of our free states are emerging the poor, shattered, broken remnants of families,--men and women, escaped, by miraculous providences, from the surges of slavery,--feeble in knowledge, and, in many cases, infirm in moral constitution, from a system which confounds and confuses every principle of Christianity and morality. They come to seek a refuge among you; they come to seek education, knowledge, Christianity.
What do you owe to these poor, unfortunates, O Christians? Does not every American
Christian owe to the African race some effort at reparation for the wrongs that the
American nation has brought upon them? Shall the doors of churches and school-houses
be shut down upon them? Shall states arise and shake them out? Shall the Church of
Christ hear in silence the taunt that is thrown at them, and shrink away from the
helpless hand that they stretch out, and shrink away from the courage the cruelty
that would chase them from our borders? If it must be so, it will be a mournful
spectacle. If it must be so, the country will have reason to tremble, when it remembers
that fate of nations is in the hand of the One who is very pitiful, and of tender
compassion. -Harriet Beecher Stowe
There is a great stir about colored men getting their rights, but not a word
about the colored women; and if colored men get their rights, and not colored
women theirs, you see the colored men will be masters over the women, and it will
be just as bad as it was before. So I am for keeping the thing going while things
are stirring; because if we wait till it is still, it will take a great while to
get it going again. -Sojourner Truth, Equal Rights Convention, New York, 1867
It is the mind that makes the body. -Sojourner Truth
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down
all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right
side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them. -Sojourner Truth
Truth burns up error. -Sojourner Truth
Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him. -Sojourner Truth
Religion without humanity is poor human stuff. -Sojourner Truth