Edith Stein: Woman

Edith Stein was Jewish-German nun, theologian and philosopher. Explore interesting quotes on woman.
Edith Stein: 68   quotes 8   likes

“The singular mission of the working woman is to fuse her feminine calling with her vocational calling and, by means of that fusion, to give a feminine quality to her vocational calling.”

Edith Stein

Essays on Woman (1996), Fundamental Principles of Women's Education (1931)

“I am convinced that the species humanity embraces the double species man and woman; that the essence of the complete human being is characterized by this duality; and that the entire structure of the essence demonstrates the specific character. There is a difference, not only in body structure and in particular physiological functions, but also in the entire corporeal life.”

Edith Stein

Essays on Woman (1996), Problems of Women's Education (1932)

Life

“The relationship of soul and body is different in man and woman; the relationship of soul to body differs in their psychic life as well as that of the spiritual faculties to each other. The feminine species expresses a unity and wholeness of the toal psychosomatic personality and a harmonious development of faculties. The masculine species strives to enhance individual abilities in order that they may attain their highest achievements.”

Edith Stein

Essays on Woman (1996), Problems of Women's Education (1932)

Life , Soul , Personality

“As woman was the first to be tempted, so did God's message of grace come first to a woman, and each time woman's assent determined the destiny of humanity as a whole.”

Edith Stein

Essays on Woman (1996), The Separate Vocations of Man and Woman According to Nature and Grace (1932)

God , Time

“Only the person blinded by the passion of controversy could deny that woman in soul and body is formed for a particular purpose.”

Edith Stein

Essays on Woman (1996), The Ethos of Woman's Professions (1930)
Context: Only the person blinded by the passion of controversy could deny that woman in soul and body is formed for a particular purpose. The clear and irrevocable world of Scripture declares what daily experience teaches from the beginning of the world: woman is destined to be wife and mother.

Soul , Passion , Personality

“Woman's soul is present and lives more intensely in all parts of the body, and it is inwardly affected by that which happens to the body; whereas, with men, the body has more pronoucedly the character of an instrument which serves them in their work and which is accompanied by a certain detachment.”

Edith Stein

Essays on Woman (1996), Spirituality of the Christian Woman (1932)

Men , Soul , Parting

“The spiritual nature of woman is as little considered as the principles of her historical development. Not only is violence being done to the spirit by a biological misinterpretation and by today's economic trends, but also by the materialistic and fundamental point of view of opposing groups.”

Edith Stein

Essays on Woman (1996), Problems of Women's Education (1932)

Nature

“Each woman who lives in the light of eternity can fulfill her vocation, no matter if it is in marriage, in a religious order, or in a worldly profession.”

Edith Stein

Essays on Woman (1996), Spirituality of the Christian Woman (1932)

Marriage , Light

“We are being obliged to consider the significance of woman and her existence as a problem. We cannot evade the question as to what we are and what we should be.”

Edith Stein

Essays on Woman (1996), Spirituality of the Christian Woman (1932)

Question , Problem

“Everywhere the need exists for maternal sympathy and help, and thus we are able to recapitulate in the one word motherliness that which we have developed as the characteristic value of woman. Only, the motherliness must be that which does not remain within the narrow circle of blood relations or of personal friends; but in accordance with the model of the Mother of Mercy, it must have its root in universal divine love for all who are there, belabored and burdened.”

Edith Stein

Essays on Woman (1996), The Significance of Woman's Intrinsic Value in National Life (1928)

Love , Universe , Help , Maternity

“The distinction of the female sex is that a woman was the person who was permitted to help establish God's new kingdom; the distinction of the male sex is that redemption came through the Son of Man, the new Adam.”

Edith Stein

Essays on Woman (1996), The Separate Vocations of Man and Woman According to Nature and Grace (1932)

God , Sex , Help , Personality

“Because the sin which she encouraged him to commit was in all likelihood a sin of sensuality, woman is more intensely exposed to the danger of descent into stark carnality. And when this happens, she always becomes once again the evil seductress, whereas, paradoxically, God has specifically enjoined her to combat evil.”

Edith Stein

Essays on Woman (1996), The Separate Vocations of Man and Woman According to Nature and Grace (1932)

God , Evil

“The intrinsic value of woman consists essentially in exceptional receptivity for God's work in the soul, and this value comes to unalloyed development if we abandon ourselves confidently and unresistingly to this work.”

Edith Stein

Essays on Woman (1996), The Significance of Woman's Intrinsic Value in National Life (1928)

God , Soul , Confidence

“Every profession in which woman's soul comes into its own and which can be formed by woman's soul is an authentic woman's profession.”

Edith Stein

Essays on Woman (1996), The Ethos of Woman's Professions (1930)

Soul

“The soul of woman must therefore be expansive and open to all human beings; it must be quiet so that no small weak flame will be extinguished by stormy winds; warm so as not to benumb fragile buds; clear, so that no vermin will settle in dark corners and recesses; self-contained, so that no invasions from without can imperil the inner life; empty of self, in order that extraneous life may have room in it; finally, mistress of itself and also of its body, so that the entire person is readily at the disposal of every call.”

Edith Stein

Essays on Woman (1996), Fundamental Principles of Women's Education (1931)

Life , Soul , Personality