Elizabeth Cady Stanton Quotes

137 Sourced Quotes

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.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
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
Surely the immutable laws of the universe can teach more impressive and exalted lessons than the holy books of all the religions on earth.

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

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Come, come, my conservative friend, wipe the dew off your spectacles, and see that the world is moving.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
To-day the woman is Mrs. Richard Roe, to-morrow Mrs. John Doe, and again Mrs. James Smith according as she changes masters, and she has so little self-respect that she does not see the insult of the custom.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The religious superstitions of women perpetuate their bondage more than all other adverse influences.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Fear, coercion, punishment, are the masculine remedies for moral weakness, but statistics show their failure for centuries. Why not change the system and try the education of the moral and intellectual faculties, cheerful surroundings, inspiring influences? Everything in our present system tends to lower the physical vitality, the self-respect, the moral tone, and to harden instead of reforming the criminal.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
I think all these reverend gentlemen who insist on the word 'obey' in the marriage service should be removed for a clear violation of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, which says there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude within the United States.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Resolved, That it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Whether our feet are compressed in iron shoes, our faces hidden with veils and masks; whether yoked with cows to draw the plow through its furrows, or classed with idiots, lunatics and criminals in the laws and constitutions of the State, the principle is the same; for the humiliations of the spirit are as real as the visible badges of servitude.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
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.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Nothing strengthens the judgment and quickens the conscience like individual responsibility.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Who can sum up all the ills the women of a nation suffer from war? They have all of the misery and none of the glory; nothing to mitigate their weary waiting and watching for the loved ones who return no more.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
A woman who occupies the same realm of thought with man, who can explore with him the depths of science, comprehend the steps of progress through the long past and prophesy those of the momentous future, must ever be surprised and aggravated with his assumptions of leadership and superiority, a superiority she never concedes, an authority she utterly repudiates.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The virtue of patriotism is subordinate in most souls to individual and family aggrandizement.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Motherhood is the most important of all professions—requiring more knowledge than any other department in human affairs.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The strongest reason why we ask for woman a voice in the government under which she lives; in the religion she is asked to believe; equality in social life, where she is the chief factor; a place in the trades and professions, where she may earn her bread, is because of her birthright to self-sovereignty; because, as an individual, she must rely on herself.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
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
Oh, the shortcomings and inconsistency of the average human being, especially when this human being is a man trying to manage women's affairs!

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
So closely interwoven have been our lives, our purposes, and experiences that, separated, we have a feeling of incompleteness--united, such strength of self-association that no ordinary obstacles, difficulties, or dangers ever appear to us insurmountable.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The first step in the elevation of women under all systems of religion is to convince them that the great Spirit of the Universe is in no way responsible for any of these absurdities.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Nature never repeats herself, and the possibilities of one human soul will never be found in another.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The desire to please those we admire and respect often cripples conscience.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton