Elizabeth Cady Stanton Quotes

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.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

Freedom Greatness Hope Ignorance Justice Noble Principle Religion Wrong
The memory of my own suffering has prevented me from ever shadowing one young soul with the superstition of the Christian religion.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

Memories Oneself Religion Shadow Suffering Young
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.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

Education Great Religious See Togetherness Woman Work
Womanhood is the great fact in her life; wifehood and motherhood are but incidental relations.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

Greatness Life Mom Relationship Wife Woman
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.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

Children Development Equality Fall Justice Liberty Nature Possible Race Religion Rise Teaching
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.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

Believe Death Domination God Love Men Religion Sin Teaching World
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.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

Angry Beautiful Beauty Love Mother Peace Place Rain Rule Sea Togetherness
The more complete the despotism, the more smoothly all things move on the surface.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

Complete Smooth Surface
Among the clergy we find our most violent enemies, those most opposed to any change in woman’s position.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

Change Enemy Ourselves Position Violence Woman
The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women’s emancipation.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

Greatness Path Religious Struggle Woman
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.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

Growth Happiness Ideas Place Religious
The prolonged slavery of woman is the darkest page in human history.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

Darkness Diversity History Human Oppression Slave Woman
Words cannot describe the indignation a proud woman feels for her sex in disfranchisement.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

Feeling Proud Sex Woman Word
[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.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

Home Mother Present Role Women
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.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

Alone Development Need Reality Time
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.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

Design Health Illustration Men Opportunity Possible Sacrifice Woman Work
We found nothing grand in the history of the Jews nor in the morals inculcated in the Pentateuch. I know of no other books that so fully teach the subjection and degradation of woman.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

Book History Moral Myself Teaching Woman
If the Bible teaches the equality of women, why does the church refuse to ordain women to preach the gospel, to fill the offices of deacons and elders, and to administer the Sacraments…?
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

Equality Job Responsibility Role Teaching Woman
Nature never repeats herself, and the possibilities of one human soul will never be found in another.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

Human Nature Oneself Possible Soul Spiritual Success
Nothing adds such dignity to character as the recognition of one’s self- sovereignty.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

Character Dignity Oneself Recognition
God, in His wisdom, has so linked the whole human family together that any violence done at one end of the chain is felt throughout its length.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

End Family God Human Togetherness Violence Wisdom
The woman is uniformly sacrificed to the wife and mother.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

Mom Role Sacrifice Wife Woman
All men & women are created equal.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

Creation Equality Men One Liner Woman
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.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

Change Happiness Misery Peace People Soul
The Bible contains some of the most sublime passages in English literature, but is also full of contradictions, inconsistencies, and absurdities.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

Book Consistency Literature Religious
Social science affirms that a woman’s place in society marks the level of civilization.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

Civilization Place Society Women
To refuse political equality is to rob the ostracized of all self-respect.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

Equality Politics Respect

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