Quotes by Jane Addams

“… this dream that men shall cease to waste strength in competition and shall come to pool their powers of production is coming to pass all over the earth.”

“Life cannot be administered by definite rules and regulations; that wisdom to deal with a man’s difficulties comes only through some knowledge of his life and habits as a whole ...”

“With all the efforts made by modern society to nurture and educate the young, how stupid it is to permit the mothers of young children to spend themselves in the coarser work of the world!”

“If the Settlement seeks its expression through social activity, it must learn the difference between mere social unrest and spiritual impulse.”

“A Settlement is above all a place for enthusiasms, a spot to which those who have a passion for the equalization of human joys and opportunities are early attracted.”

“Of all the aspects of social misery nothing is so heartbreaking as unemployment ...”

“Hospitality still survives among foreigners, although it is buried under false pride among the poorest Americans.”

“Private beneficence is totally inadequate to deal with the vast numbers of the city's disinherited.”

“Social advance depends quite as much upon an increase in moral sensibility as it does upon a sense of duty ...”

“I have come to believe … that the stage may do more than teach, that much of our current moral instruction will not endure the test of being cast into a lifelike mold, and when presented in dramati...”

“If the underdog were always right, one might quite easily try to defend him. The trouble is that very often he is but obscurely right, sometimes only partially right, and often quite wrong; but per...”

“The common stock of intellectual enjoyment should not be difficult of access because of the economic position of him who would approach it.”

“At one time five of us tried to understand De Quincey's marvelous Dreams more sympathetically, by drugging ourselves with opium. We solemnly consumed small white powders at intervals during an enti...”

“The task of youth is not only its own salvation but the salvation of those against whom it rebels, but in that case there must be something vital to rebel against and if the elderly stiffly refuse ...”

“Miss Addams is always in action, and many other women, the pride of your country.”

“Somebody said Miss Addams is living proof that a woman can do very much without voting. One can answer: She would do much more when the votes of her sisters were with her.”

“Jane Addams and others spoke and acted on behalf of women labor leaders like Lucy Parsons, assisting them in rallies, providing bail when they were arrested, and using their tremendous power and in...”

“Jane Addams attended our conference in 1908 and commended our work.”