Dora Russell: Quotes about children

Dora Russell was author, feminist, socialist campaigner. Explore interesting quotes on children.

Dora Russell: 26 quotes1 like

“We want better reasons for having children than not knowing how to prevent them.”

Hypatia (1925), Ch. 4
Context: We want better reasons for having children than not knowing how to prevent them. Nor should we represent motherhood as something so common and easy that everyone can go through it without harm or suffering and rear her children competently and well.

“Women must not merely imitate men. Women have more to give than performing any job in society like neutered robots. Those who talk today of rousing the 'consciousness' of women contribute an idea of real importance. It was such a grievous mistake to leave out women. For whence can come love, compassion and understanding if not out of the relations of men and women and of them to their children?”

Dora Russell

Source: The Tamarisk Tree (1975), Ch. XIV

“Strictly speaking, no person who believes that wars between classes and nations are inevitable is fit to be in charge of the destiny of children. To believe in the unity of the human race and get children to believe it in early youth would mean the creation of that unity and the end of war.”

Dora Russell

Source: The Right to Be Happy (1927), Ch. V, p. 205

“Nothing whatever is to be gained by driving the timorous and weak by lies or compulsion into pain which they will resent and responsibility which they will evade. Everything is to be gained by training a woman in knowledge, courage, and physical strength, and leaving it then to her own instinct and her mind to tell her that to create new human beings is worth the discomfort and the suffering she must necessarily undergo. Those in whom the courage to create survives when choice is free and all the facts are known are those best fitted to bring children into the world, and breed in them eagerness and intrepidity. The others will only pass on fear and distaste for life from which individuals and the community suffer far too much already.”

Dora Russell book Hypatia

Hypatia (1925), Ch. 4