For thousands of years must Indian women have risen with the light to perform the Salutation of the Threshold. Thousands of years of simplicity and patience, like that of the peasant, like that of the grass, speak in the beautiful rite. It is this patience of woman that makes civilisations. It is this patience of the Indian woman, with this her mingling of large power of reverie, that has made and makes the Indian nationality.

Sister Nivedita. The Web of Indian Life, Ch. V: The Place of Women in the National Life. Retrieved on 20 June 2012. - The Web of Indian Life (1904)