Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Mr. Douglass talks about the wrongs of the negro; but with all the outrages that he to-day suffers, he would not exchange his sexand take the place of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
... we should be miserable but for the consciousness that we have done all in our power to help forward every measure for the freedom and equality of the races and the sexes.
Disfranchisement means inability to make, shape, or control one's own circumstances... . That is exactly the position of women in the world of work today; they cannot choose.
I have many things to say. My every right, constitutional, civil, political and judicial has been tramped upon. I have not only had no jury of my peers, but I have had no jury at all.
Would you exalt your profession, exalt those who labor with you...increase the salaries of the women engaged in the noble work of educating our future presidents, senators and congressmen.
I beg you to speak of Woman as you do of the Negro, speak of her as a human being, as a citizen of the United States, as a half of the people in whose hands lies the destiny of this Nation.
So long as State constitutions say that all may vote when twenty-one, save idiots, lunatics, convicts and women, you are brought down politically to the level of those others disfranchised.
... even if the right to vote brought to women no better work, no better pay, no better conditions in any way, she should have itfor her own self-respect and to compel man's respect for her.
The work of woman is not to lessen the severity or the certainty of the penalty for the violation of the moral law, but to prevent this violation by the removal of the causes which lead to it.
I do not demand equal pay for any women save those who do equal work in value. Scorn to be coddled by your employers; make them understand that you are in their service as workers, not as women.
The principle of self-government cannot be violated with impunity. The individual's right to it is sacred - regardless of class, caste, race, color, sex or any other accident or incident of birth.
Here, in this very first paragraph of the Declaration, is the assertion of the natural right of all to the ballot; for how can 'the consent of the governed' be given if the right to vote be denied?
Oh, yes. I'd do it all again; the spirit is willing yet; I feel the same desire to do the work but the flesh is weak. It's too bad that our bodies wear out while our interests are just as strong as ever.
If all the rich and all of the church people should send their children to the public schools they would feel bound to concentrate their money on improving these schools until they met the highest ideals.
Forget conventionalisms; forget what the world thinks of you stepping out of your place; think your best thoughts, speak your best words, work your best works, looking to your own conscience for approval.
We throw to the winds the old dogma that governments can give rights. Before governments were organized, no one denies that each individual possessed the right to protect his own life, liberty and property.
It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.... Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less
There never seems to be any difficulty in stretching the laws and the constitution to fit any kind of a political deal, but when it is proposed to make some concession to women they loom up like an unscalable wall.
It is downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic-republican government: the ballot.
I think it a much wiser thing to secure for the thousands of mothers in this State the legal control of the children they now have, than to bring others into the world who would not belong to me after they were born.
I can't say that the college-bred woman is the most contented woman. The broader her mind the more she understands the unequal conditions between men and women, the more she chafes under a government that tolerates it.
Sweeter even than to have had the joy of caring for children of my own has it been to me to help bring about a better state of things for mothers generally, so their unborn little ones could not be willed away from them.
When will the men do something besides extend congratulations? I would rather have President Roosevelt say one word to Congress infavor of amending the Constitution to give women the suffrage than to praise me endlessly!
[Asked if American women would ever win full suffrage:] Assuredly. I firmly believed at one time that I should live to see that day. I have never for one moment lost faith. It will come but I shall not see itit is inevitable.
Had I represented twenty thousand voters in Michigan, that political editor would not have known nor cared whether I was the oldest or the youngest daughter of Methuselah, or whether my bonnet came from the Ark or from Worth's.
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.
When society is rightly organized, the wife and mother will have time, wish and will to grow intellectually, and will know that the limits of her sphere, the extent of her duties, are prescribed only by the measure of her ability.
What you should say to outsiders is that a Christian has neither more nor less rights in our Association than an atheist. When our platform becomes too narrow for people of all creeds and of no creeds, I myself shall not stand upon it.
It will be the mistake of your life if you go into print in your own defence [sic]. Your denial will reach a new set of people andstart them to talking, while the ones who read the original charges will never see the refutation of them.
The anti-suffragist talk of sheltering women from the fierce storms of life is a lot of cant. I have no patience with it. These storms beat on woman just as fiercely as they do on man, and she is not trained to defend herself against them.
I can see that "reap" and "deep," "prayers" and "bears," . . . do rhyme, and so I suppose it is a splendid effort, but if you had written it in plain prose, I could have understood it a great deal better and read it a great deal more easily.
Just as long as newspapers and magazines are controlled by men, every woman upon them must write articles which are reflections of men's ideas. As long as that continues, women's ideas and deepest convictions will never get before the public.
There is not the woman born who desires to eat the bread of dependence, no matter whether it be from the hand of father, husband, or brother; for any one who does so eat her bread places herself in the power of the person from whom she takes it.
Women should have equal pay for equal work and they should be considered equally eligible to the offices of principal and superintendent, professor and president. So you must insist that qualifications, not sex, shall govern appointments and salaries.
It has always been thought perfectly womanly to be a scrub- woman in the Legislature and to take care of the spittoons; that is entirely within the charmed circle of woman's sphere; but for women to occupy any of those official seats would be degrading.
... we shall never become an immense power in the world until we concentrate all our money and editorial forces upon one great national daily newspaper, so we can sauce back our opponents every day in the year; once a month or once a week is not enough.
Marriage, to women as to men, must be a luxury, not a necessity; an incident of life, not all of it. And the only possible way to accomplish this great change is to accord to women equal power in the making, shaping and controlling of the circumstances of life.
Gentlemen ... Do you not see that so long as society says a woman is incompetent to be a lawyer, minister or doctor, but has ample ability to be a teacher, that every man of you who chooses this profession tacitly acknowledges that he has no more brains than a woman?
I have known nothing the last thirty years save the struggle for human rights on this continent. If it had been a class of men whowere disfranchised and denied their legal rights, I believe I should have devoted my life precisely as I have done in behalf of my own sex.
... even I am growing accustomed to slavery; so much so that I cease to think of its accursed influence and calmly eat from the hands of the bondman without being mindful that he is such. O, Slavery, hateful thing that thou art thus to blunt the keen edge of conscience!
The Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, the constitutions of the several states, and the organic laws of the territories all alike propose to protect the people in the exercise of their God-given rights. Not one of them pretends to bestow rights.
It is perfectly right for a gentleman to say "ladies and gentlemen," but a lady should say, "gentlemen and ladies." You mention your friend's name before you do your own. I always feel like rebuking any woman who says, "ladies and gentlemen." It is a lack of good manners.
The day will come when men will recognize woman as his peer, not only at the fireside, but in councils of the nation. Then, and not until then, will there be the perfect comradeship, the ideal union between the sexes that shall result in the highest development of the race.
When a man says to me, 'Let us work together in the great cause you have undertaken, and let me be your companion and aid, for I admire you more than I have ever admired any other woman,' then I shall say, 'I am yours truly'; but he must ask me to be his equal, not his slave.
... God allows the wheat and the tares to grow up together, andthe tares frequently get the start of the wheat and kill it out. The only difference between the wheat and human beings is that the latter have intellect and ought to combine and pull out the tares, root and branch.
A woman growing up under American ideas of liberty in government and religion, having never blushed behind a Turkish mask, nor pressed her feet in Chinese shoes, cannot brook any disabilities based on sex alone, without a deep feeling of antagonism with the power that creates it.
If women will not accept marriage with subjection, nor men proffer it without, there is, there can be, no alternative. The women who will not be ruled must live without marriage. And during this transition period... single women make comfortable and attractive homes for themselves.
I deplore the horrible crime as child murder....no matter what the motive, love of ease, or desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent,the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed...but oh, thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which compelled her to the crime.
If any proof were needed of the progress of the cause for which I have worked, it is here tonight. The presence on the stage of these college women, and in the audience of all those college girls who will some day be the nation's greatest strength, will tell their own story to the world.
... while one-half of the people of the United States are robbed of their inherent right of personal representation in this freestcountry on the face of the globe, it is idle for us to expect that the men who thus rob women will not rob each other as individuals, corporations and Government.