21+ Best Dorothea Dix Quotes: Exclusive Selection

Dorothea Lynde Dix was an American educator, social reformer, and humanitarian. She was an American advocate on behalf of the indigent mentally ill and her devotion to the welfare of the mentally ill led to widespread reforms in the United States and abroad. Inspirational Dorothea Dix quotes will encourage you to think a little deeper than you usually would and broaden your perspective.

If you’re searching for inspiring quotes by prominent activists that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of Fannie Lou Hamer quotes, William Lloyd Garrison quotes, and Victoria Woodhull quotes.

Most Famous Dorothea Dix Quotes

Every evil has its good, and every ill an antidote. – Dorothea Dix

In order to do good, a man must be good, and he will not be good except he have instruction by counsel and by example. – Dorothea Dix

I think even lying on my bed I can still do something. – Dorothea Dix

Be of good cheer, for sadness cannot heal the national wounds. – Dorothea Dix

Always remember those things that tend to strengthen and improve your understanding. You cannot learn without attention, neither retain those lessons that you have once learnt without frequently reflecting upon and reviewing them in your mind; by this means, things long past will remain impressed upon your memory. – Dorothea Dix

I come to present the strong claims of suffering humanity. I come to place before the Legislature of Massachusetts the condition of the miserable, the desolate, the outcast. I come as the advocate of helpless, forgotten, insane men and women; of beings sunk to a condition from which the unconcerned world would start with real horror. – Dorothea Dix

This sentiment of satisfaction in being useful, the guardian of the insane cannot too carefully watch over and foster since it conducts to self-control and self-respect. Incurables who are able and willing to work, are much more contented and enjoy better health when employed. – Dorothea Dix

Your minds may now be likened to a garden, which will, if neglected, yield only weeds and thistles; but, if cultivated, will produce the most beautiful flowers, and the most delicious fruits. – Dorothea Dix

I proceed, gentlemen, to call your attention to the present state of insane persons confined within the commonwealth; in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens; chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience. – Dorothea Dix

Of all the calamities to which humanity is subject, none is so dreadful as insanity. … All experience shows that insanity seasonably treated is as certainly curable as a cold or a fever. – Dorothea Dix

Brains are still unfashionable for women to wear, and it has always been proof of women’s superiority that the more intelligent a man is, the more women admire him, while the bigger fool a woman is, the more men run after her. – Dorothea Dix

I have learned to live each day as it comes, and not to borrow trouble by dreading tomorrow. – Dorothea Dix

I have no particular love for my species, but own to an exhaustless fund of compassion – Dorothea Dix

Society, during the last hundred years, has been alternately perplexed and encouraged, respecting the two great questions -how shall the criminal and pauper be disposed of, in order to reduce crime and reform the criminal on the one hand, and, on the other, to diminish pauperism and restore the pauper to useful citizenship? – Dorothea Dix

in proportion as my own discomfort has increased, my conviction of necessity to search into the wants of the friendless and afflicted has deepened. If I am cold, they too are cold; if I am weary, they are distressed; if I am alone, they are abandoned. – Dorothea Dix

Man is not made better by being degraded; he is seldom restrained from crime by harsh measures, except the principle of fear predominates in his character; and then he is never made radically better for its influence. – Dorothea Dix

The tapestry of history has no point at which you can cut it and leave the design intelligible. – Dorothea Dix

But the truth is the highest consideration. – Dorothea Dix

[To a woman who claimed she’d rather be dead than unconfined and unfashionable:] My dear, if you continue to lace as tightly as you do now, you will not long have the privilege of choice. You will be both dead and out of fashion. – Dorothea Dix

A man usually values that most for which he has labored; he uses that most frugally which he has toiled hour by hour and day by day to acquire. – Dorothea Dix

While we diminish the stimulant of fear, we must increase to prisoners the incitements of hope, in proportion as we extinguish the terrors of the law, we should awaken and strengthen the control of the conscience. – Dorothea Dix