Elizabeth Cady Stanton (November 12, 1815 - October 26, 1902) was an American social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early women's rights movement. Her Declaration of Sentiments, presented at the first women's rights convention held in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, is often credited with initiating the first organized women's rights and women's suffrage movements in the United States. (Click here for full Wikipedia article)
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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.
Come, come, my conservative friend, wipe the dew off your spectacles, and see that the world is moving.
How long will the heathens rage?
I am always busy, which is perhaps the chief reason why I am always well.
I would have girls regard themselves not as adjectives but as nouns.
It requires philosophy and heroism to rise above the opinion of the wise men of all nations and races.
It was just so in the American Revolution, in 1776, the first delicacy the men threw overboard in Boston harbor was the tea, woman's favorite beverage. The tobacco and whiskey, though heavily taxed, they clung to with the tenacity of the devil-fish.
Men think that self-sacrifice is the most charming of all the cardinal virtues for women, and in order to keep it in healthy working order, they make opportunities for its illustration as often as possible.
No matter how much women prefer to lean, to be protected and supported, nor how much men desire to have them do so, they must make the voyage of life alone, and for safety in an emergency they must know something of the laws of navigation.
Our 'pathway' is straight to the ballot box, with no variableness nor shadow of turning...We demand in the Reconstruction suffrage for all the citizens of the Republic. I would not talk of Negroes or women, but of citizens.
So long as women are slaves, men will be knaves.
The happiest people I have known have been those who gave themselves no concern about their own souls, but did their uttermost to mitigate the miseries of others.
The heyday of woman's life is the shady side of fifty.
The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman.
The isolation of every human soul and the necessity of self-dependence must give each individual the right, to choose his own surroundings.
The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.
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.
To deny political equality is to rob the ostracised of all self-respect; of credit in the market place; of recompense in the world of work; of a voice among those who make and administer the law; a choice in the jury before whom they are tried, and in the judge who decides their punishment.
To throw obstacles in the way of a complete education is like putting out the eyes.
Truth is the only safe ground to stand on.
We are, as a sex, infinitely superior to men, and if we were free and developed, healthy in body and mind, as we should be under natural conditions, our motherhood would be our glory. That function gives women such wisdom and power as no male can possess.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.
Whatever the theories may be of woman's dependence on man, in the supreme moments of her life he can not bear her burdens.
When women understand that governments and religions are human inventions; that Bibles, prayer-books, catechisms, and encyclical letters are all emanations from the brains of man, they will no longer be oppressed by the injunctions that come to them with the divine authority of 'Thus sayeth the Lord.'
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... If this present woman must be crucified, let men drive the spikes.
Categories: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Quotes on a topic
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