Quotes by Elizabeth Cady Stanton

“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 l...”

“Truth is the only safe ground to stand on.”

“The bible and the church have been the greatest stumbling block in the way of women's emancipation.”

“When we consider that women are treated as property it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit.”

“I would have girls regard themselves not as adjectives but as nouns.”

“You may go over the world and you will find that every form of religion which has breathed upon this earth has degraded woman... I have been traveling over the old world during the last few years a...”

“One would think that potential motherhood should make women as a class as sacred as the priesthood. In common parlance we have much fine-spun theorizing on the exalted office of the mother, her imm...”

“We cannot accept any code or creed that uniformly defrauds woman of all her natural rights.”

“Our civil and criminal codes reflect at many points the spirit of the Mosaic. In the criminal code we find no feminine pronouns, as "He," "His," "Him," we are arrested, tried and hung, but singular...”

“We should give to our rulers, our sires and sons no rest until all our rights social, civil and political are fully accorded. How are men to know what we want unless we tell them? They have no idea...”

“He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and to her God. He has endeavored in every way ...”

“Put it down in capital letters: SELF-DEVELOPMENT IS A HIGHER DUTY THAN SELF-SACRIFICE. The thing that most retards and militates against womens self development is self-sacrifice.”

“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 long...”

“Woman's degradation is in mans idea of his sexual rights. Our religion, laws, customs, are all founded on the belief that woman was made for man.”

“Did I not feel that the time has come for the questions of women's wrongs to be laid before the public? Did I not believe that women herself must do this work, for women alone understand the height...”

“Whatever the theories may be of womans dependence on man, in the supreme moments of her life he can not bear her burdens. Alone she goes to the gates of death to give life to every man that is born...”

“How the little courtesies of life on the surface of society, deemed so important from man towards woman, fade into utter insignificance in view of the deeper tragedies in which she must play her pa...”

“We ask no sympathy from others in the anxiety and agony of abroken friendship or shattered love. When death sunders our nearest ties, alone we sit in the shadow of our affliction. Alike mid the gre...”

“self-development is a higher duty than self-sacrifice.”

“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.”