Margaret Fuller: Woman

Margaret Fuller was American feminist, poet, author, and activist. Explore interesting quotes on woman.
Margaret Fuller: 232   quotes 28   likes

“The especial genius of Woman I believe to be electrical in movement, intuitive in function, spiritual in tendency.”

Margaret Fuller book Woman in the Nineteenth Century

Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845)

“Let every woman, who has once begun to think, examine herself”

Margaret Fuller book Woman in the Nineteenth Century

Source: Woman in the Nineteenth Century

Thinking

“The position I early was enabled to take was one of self-reliance. And were all women as sure of their wants as I was, the result would be the same. But they are so overloaded with precepts and guardians who think that nothing is so much to be dreaded for a woman as originality of thought or character, that their minds are impeded with doubts till they lose their chance of fair, free proportions. The difficulty is to get them to the point from which they shall naturally develop self-respect, and learn self-help.”

Margaret Fuller book Woman in the Nineteenth Century

Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845)

Women , Nature , Thinking , Learning

“We would have every arbitrary barrier thrown down. We would have every path laid open to Woman as freely as to Man.”

Margaret Fuller book Woman in the Nineteenth Century

Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845)
Context: We would have every arbitrary barrier thrown down. We would have every path laid open to Woman as freely as to Man. Were this done, and a slight temporary fermentation allowed to subside, we should see crystallizations more pure and of more various beauty. We believe the divine energy would pervade nature to a degree unknown in the history of former ages, and that no discordant collision, but a ravishing harmony of the spheres, would ensue.
Yet, then and only then will mankind be ripe for this, when inward and outward freedom for Woman as much as for Man shall be acknowledged as a right, not yielded as a concession.

“Let us have one creative energy, one incessant revelation. Let it take what form it will, and let us not bind it by the past to man or woman, black or white.”

Margaret Fuller book Woman in the Nineteenth Century

Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845)
Context: What I mean by the Muse is that unimpeded clearness of the intuitive powers, which a perfectly truthful adherence to every admonition of the higher instincts would bring to a finely organized human being. It may appear as prophecy or as poesy. … and should these faculties have free play, I believe they will open new, deeper and purer sources of joyous inspiration than have as yet refreshed the earth.
Let us be wise, and not impede the soul. Let her work as she will. Let us have one creative energy, one incessant revelation. Let it take what form it will, and let us not bind it by the past to man or woman, black or white.

Past

“It is a vulgar error that love, a love, to Woman is her whole existence; she also is born for Truth and Love in their universal energy.”

Margaret Fuller book Woman in the Nineteenth Century

Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845)
Context: Woman, self-centred, would never be absorbed by any relation it would be only an experience to her as to man. It is a vulgar error that love, a love, to Woman is her whole existence; she also is born for Truth and Love in their universal energy.

Love , Truth , Error , Universe

“The electrical, the magnetic element in Woman has not been fairly brought out at any period. Everything might be expected from it; she has far more of it than Man.”

Margaret Fuller book Woman in the Nineteenth Century

Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845)
Context: The electrical, the magnetic element in Woman has not been fairly brought out at any period. Everything might be expected from it; she has far more of it than Man. This is commonly expressed by saying that her intuitions are more rapid and more correct. You will often see men of high intellect absolutely stupid in regard to the atmospheric changes, the fine invisible links which connect the forms of life around them, while common women, if pure and modest, so that a vulgar self do not overshadow the mental eye, will seize and delineate these with unerring discrimination.
Women who combine this organization with creative genius are very commonly unhappy at present. They see too much to act in conformity with those around them, and their quick impulses seem folly to those who do not discern the motives. This is an usual effect of the apparition of genius, whether in Man or Woman, but is more frequent with regard to the latter, because a harmony, an obvious order and self-restraining decorum, is most expected from her.
Then women of genius, even more than men, are likely to be enslaved by an impassioned sensibility. The world repels them more rudely, and they are of weaker bodily frame.
Those who seem overladen with electricity frighten those around them.

“There are who separate the eternal light
In forms of man and woman, day and night;
They cannot bear that God be essence quite.”

Margaret Fuller

Life Without and Life Within (1859), The One In All

God , Light , Night

“What Woman needs is not as a woman to act or rule, but as a nature to grow, as an intellect to discern, as a soul to live freely and unimpeded.”

Margaret Fuller book Woman in the Nineteenth Century

Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845)

Soul , Nature

“There is a Polish countess here, who likes me much. She has been very handsome, still is, in the style of the full-blown rose. She is a widow, very rich, one of the emancipated women, naturally vivacious, and with talent. This woman envies me; she says, "How happy you are; so free, so serene, so attractive, so self-possessed!" I say not a word, but I do not look on myself as particularly enviable. A little money would have made me much more so; a little money would have enabled me to come here long ago, and find those that belong to me, or at least try my experiments; then my health would never have sunk, nor the best years of my life been wasted in useless friction. Had I money now, — could I only remain, take a faithful servant, and live alone, and still see those I love when it is best, that would suit me. It seems to me, very soon I shall be calmed, and begin to enjoy.”

Margaret Fuller

Letter (17 November 1847).
Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1852)

Love , Life , Women , Money

“Were the destiny of woman thus exactly marked out, did she invariably retain the shelter of a parent’s or guardian’s roof till she married, did marriage give her a sure home and a protector, were she never liable to be made a widow, or, if so, sure of finding immediate protection from a brother or new husband, so that she might never be forced to stand alone one moment, and were her mind given for this world only, with no faculties capable of eternal growth and infinite improvement, we would still demand of her a far wider and more generous culture than is proposed by those who so anxiously define her sphere.”

Margaret Fuller

Article, The New York Daily Tribune (30 September 1845); quoted in Brilliant Bylines (1986) by Barbara Belford.

Marriage , World , Home , Parent

“Let it not be said, wherever there is energy or creative genius, 'She has a masculine mind.'
This by no means argues a willing want of generosity toward Woman. Man is as generous towards her as he knows how to be. Wherever she has herself arisen in national or private history, and nobly shone forth in any form of excellence, men have received her, not only willingly, but with triumph.”

Margaret Fuller book Woman in the Nineteenth Century

Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845)

Men , History