“Nothing adds such dignity to character as the recognition of one’s self- sovereignty.”

In her present ignorance, woman’s religion, instead of making her noble and free, by the wrong application of great principles ofright and justice, has made her bondage but more certain and lasting, her degradation more hopeless and complete.

The memory of my own suffering has prevented me from ever shadowing one young soul with the superstition of the Christian religion.

Religious superstitions more than all other influences put together cripple & enslave woman, but so long as women themselves do not see it & hug their chains, we have a great educational work to do.

Womanhood is the great fact in her life; wifehood and motherhood are but incidental relations.

The new religion will teach the dignity of human nature and its infinite possibilities for development. It will teach the solidarity of the race: that all must rise and fall as one. Its creed will be justice, liberty, equality for all the children of earth.

The bible teaches that women brought sin and death into the world. I don’t believe that any man ever talked with god. The bible was written by man out of his love of domination.

Nature, like a loving mother, is ever trying to keep land and sea, mountain and valley, each in its place, to hush the angry winds and waves, balance the extremes of heat and cold, of rain and drought, that peace, harmony and beauty may reign supreme.

The more complete the despotism, the more smoothly all things move on the surface.

Among the clergy we find our most violent enemies, those most opposed to any change in woman’s position.

The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women’s emancipation.

My religious superstition gave place to rational ideas based on scientific facts, and in proportion as I looked at everything from a new standpoint, I grew more happy day by day.

The prolonged slavery of woman is the darkest page in human history.

Words cannot describe the indignation a proud woman feels for her sex in disfranchisement.

[On women’s role in the home:] Every wife, mother and housekeeper feels at present that there is some screw loose in the household situation.

To develop our real selves, we need time alone for thought and meditation. To be always giving out and never pumping in, the well runs dry.

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.

Being a gentleman is a worthy goal.

Science moves with the spirit of an adventure characterized both by youthful arrogance and by the belief that the truth, once found, would be simple as well as pretty.

It is the genus that gives the characters, and not the characters that make the genus.

I regard writing not as an investigation of character but as an exercise in the use of language, and with this I am obsessed.

Any fool can fight a winning battle, but it needs character to fight a losing one, and that should inspire us; which reminds me that I dreamed the other night that I was being hanged, but was the life and soul of the party.

Few men realize that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings.

Most men like in women what is most opposite their own characters.

Firmness in enduring and exertion is a character I always wish to possess. I have always despised the whining yelp of complaint and cowardly resolve.