Elizabeth Cady Stanton Zitate

“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.”

“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.”

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

“Nature never repeats herself, and the possibilities of one human soul will never be found in another.”

“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.”

“Come, come, my conservative friend, wipe the dew off your spectacles, and see that the world is moving.”

“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 and have found new food for thought. What power is it that makes the Hindoo woman burn herself upon the funeral pyre of her husband? Her religion. What holds the Turkish woman in the harem? Her religion. By what power do the Mormons perpetuate their system of polygamy? By their religion/ Man, of himself, could not do this; but when he declares, 'Thus saith the Lord,' of course he can do it. So long as ministers stand up and tell us Christ is the head of the church, so is man the head of woman, how are we to break the chains which have held women down through the ages? You Christian women look at the Hindoo, the Turkish, the Mormon women, and wonder how they can be held in such bondage…

Now I ask you if our religion teaches the dignity of woman? It teaches us the abominable idea of the sixth century--Augustine's idea--that motherhood is a curse; that woman is the author of sin, and is most corrupt. Can we ever cultivate any proper sense of self-respect as long as women take such sentiments from the mouths of the priesthood?”

“The best protection any woman can have… is courage.”

“The only points in which I differ from all ecclesiastical teaching is that I do not believe that any man ever saw or talked with God, I do not believe that God inspired the Mosaic code, or told the historians what they say he did about woman, for all the religions on the face of the earth degrade her, and so long as woman accepts the position that they assign her, her emancipation is impossible.”

“The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishement of an absolute tyrrany over her”

“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.”

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

“I am always busy, which is perhaps the chief reason why I am always well.”

“The heyday of woman's life is the shady side of fifty.”

“You're dangerous."he says.
Why?"
Because you make me believe in the impossible."
— Simone Elkeles (Rules of Attraction)”

“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. I would fain teach women that self-development is a higher duty than self-sacrifice.”

“That only a few, under any circumstances, protest against the injustice of long-established laws and customs, does not disprove the fact of the oppressions, while the satisfaction of the many, if real only proves their apathy and deeper degradation.”

“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.”

“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 make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.”

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal.”

“All honor to the noble women that have devoted earnest lives to the intellectual needs of mankind!”

“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.”

“No mortal ever has been, no mortal ever will be like the soul just launched on the sea of life.”

“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.”

“I have endeavored to dissipate these religious superstitions from the minds of women, and base their faith on science and reason, where I found for myself at last that peace and comfort I could never find in the Bible and the church.”

“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.”

“[W]hile the man is born to do whatever he can, for the woman and the negro there is no such privilege.”