Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Quotes about women

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was Suffragist and Women's Rights activist. Explore interesting quotes on women.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton: 84   quotes 12   likes

“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.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Women , Children

“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?”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Women , Age , World , Religion

“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 book The Woman's Bible

The Woman's Bible (1898)
Source: The Woman's Bible: A Classic Feminist Perspective

Women , Men , Thinking

“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.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Solitude of Self (1892)

Life , Women , Men , Law

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

Elizabeth Cady Stanton Declaration of Sentiments

First Woman's Rights Convention, Seneca Falls, New York, [July, 19-20, 1848]. Declaration of Sentiments.

Women , Men , Truth

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

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Susan B. Anthony (1884)

Women

“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.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1868-01-13).

Women , Box

“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.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

1896
September
The Degraded Status of Woman in the Bible
Free Thought Magazine
Chicago
14
540
http://books.google.com/books?id=TfOfAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA540&dq=%22I+have+endeavored+to+dissipate%22

Women , Peace , Faith , Science

“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.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Letter to Lucretia Mott (1872-04-01).

Women , Men , Age

“We are, as a sex, infinitely superior to men, and if we were free and developed, healthy in body and mind, as we should be under natural conditions, our motherhood would be our glory. That function gives women such wisdom and power as no male can possess.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Diary of 27 December 1890. Published in Elizabeth Cady Stanton as revealed in her letters, diary and reminiscences http://books.google.com/books?id=CIsEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA270&dq=%22We+are,+as+a+sex,+infinitely+superior+to+men.%22+--&client=firefox-a#v=onepage&q=%22We%20are%2C%20as%20a%20sex%2C%20infinitely%20superior%20to%20men.%22%20--&f=false By Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriot Stanton Blatch. Harper & brothers, 1922. p 270. GoogleBooks URL accessed 18 September 2009.

Wisdom , Women , Men , Sex

“In the criminal code we find no feminine pronouns, as "He," "His," "Him," we are arrested, tried and hung, but singularly enough, we are denied the highest privileges of citizens, because the pronouns "She," "Hers" and "Her," are not found in the constitutions. It is a pertinent question, if women can pay the penalties of their crimes as "He," why may they not enjoy the privileges of citizens as "He?"”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton book The Woman's Bible

The Woman's Bible (1898)

Women , Penalty , Question

“Resolved, That is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

First Woman's Rights Convention, Seneca Falls, New York, [July, 19-20, 1848]. Resolution IX.

Women , Country

“For fifty years the women of this nation have tried to dam up this deadly stream that poisons all their lives, but thus far they have lacked the insight or courage to follow it back to its source and there strike the blow at the fountain of all tyranny, religious superstition, priestly power and the canon law.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

1896
September
The Degraded Status of Woman in the Bible
Free Thought Magazine
Chicago
14
542
http://books.google.com/books?id=TfOfAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA542&dq=%22for+fifty+years+the+women%22

Women , Law , Courage