Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an American suffragist, social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early women’s rights movement. Profoundly inspirational Elizabeth Cady Stanton quotes will make you look at life differently and help you live a meaningful life.
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Famous Elizabeth Cady Stanton Quotes
Come, come, my conservative friend, wipe the dew off your spectacles, and see that the world is moving. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
To throw obstacles in the way of a complete education is like putting out the eyes. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Woman’s degradation is in man’s idea of his sexual rights. Our religion, laws, customs, are all founded on the belief that woman was made for man. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Nothing strengthens the judgement and quickens the conscience like individual responsibility. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Truth is the only safe ground to stand on. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
I thought that the chief thing to be done in order to equal boys was to be learned and courageous. So I decided to study Greek and learn to manage a horse. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Nature never repeats herself, and the possibilities of one human soul will never be found in another. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Woman’s discontent increases in exact proportion to her development. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The bible and the church have been the greatest stumbling block in the way of women’s emancipation. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Self development is a higher duty than self sacrifice. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
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
I am always busy, which is perhaps the chief reason why I am always well. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
I would have girls regard themselves not as adjectives but as nouns. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
With age come the inner, the higher life. Who would be forever young, to dwell always in externals? Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Come, come, my conservative friend, wipe the dew off your spectacles, and see that the world is moving. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
In youth our most bitter disappointments, our brightest hopes and ambitions, are known only to ourselves. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The happiest people I have known have been those who gave themselves no concern about their own souls, but did their uttermost to mitigate the miseries of others. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
All who live to a good old age have a genius for sleep. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The best protection any woman can have is courage. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Love is the vital essence that pervades and permeates, from the center to the circumference, the graduating circles of all thought and action. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
When women understand that governments and religions are human inventions; that Bibles, prayer books, catechisms, and encyclical letters are all emanations from the brains of man, they will no longer be oppressed by the injunctions that come to them with the divine authority of Thus sayeth the Lord. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The happiest people I have known have been those who gave themselves no concern about their own souls, but did their uttermost to mitigate the miseries of others. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
I am always busy, which is perhaps the chief reason why I am always well. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The heyday of woman’s life is the shady side of fifty. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The heyday of woman’s life is the shady side of fifty. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Truth is the only safe ground to stand on. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
There is a solitude, which each and every one of us has always carried with him, more inaccessible than the ice cold mountains, more profound than the midnight sea; the solitude of self. Our inner being, which we call ourself, no eye nor touch of man or angel has ever pierced. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The great lesson that nature seems to teach us at all ages is self-dependence, self protection, self support. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
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. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The desire to please those we admire and respect often cripples conscience. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
That only a few, under any circumstances, protest against the injustice of long established laws and customs, does not disprove the fact of the oppressions, while the satisfaction of the many, if real only proves their apathy and deeper degradation. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The great fault of mankind is that it will not think. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
I poured out the torrent of my long standing discontent and I challenged them to do and dare anything. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
I would have girls regard themselves not as adjectives, but as nouns. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
It was just so in the American Revolution, in 1776, the first delicacy the men threw overboard in Boston harbor was the tea, woman’s favorite beverage. The tobacco and whiskey, though heavily taxed, they clung to with the tenacity of the devil fish. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The best protection any woman can have is courage. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
To day the woman is Mrs. Richard Roe, to morrow Mrs. John Doe, and again Mrs. James Smith according as she changes masters, and she has so little self respect that she does not see the insult of the custom. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The prolonged slavery of women is the darkest page in human history. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Dress loose,take a great deal of exercise ,and be particular about your diet and sleep sound enough,the body has a great effect on the mind. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The ballot is the scepter of power in the hands of every citizen. Woman can never have an equal chance with man in the struggle of life until she too wields this power. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
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
How long will the heathens rage? Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Whatever oppressions man has suffered, they have invariably fallen more heavily on woman. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Love is the vital essence that pervades and permeates, from the center to the circumference, the graduating circles of all thought and action. Love is the talisman of human weal and woe the open sesame to every soul. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
It has taken the whole power of the civil and canon law to hold woman in the subordinate position which it is said she willingly accepts. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Whatever the theories may be of woman’s dependence on man, in the supreme moments of her life he can not bear her burdens. Alone she goes to the gates of death to give life to every man that is born into the world. No one can share her fears, no one can mitigate her pangs; and if her sorrow is greater than she can bear, alone she passes beyond the gates into the vast unknown. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
We hold these truths to be self evident; that all men and women are created equal. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Think of the inconvenience of vanishing as it were from your friends and, correspondents three times in one’s natural life. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Because man and woman are the complement of one another, we need woman’s thought in national affairs to make a safe and stable government. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
One would think that potential motherhood should make women as a class as sacred as the priesthood. In common parlance we have much fine spun theorizing on the exalted office of the mother, her immense influence in moulding the character of her sons; the hand that rocks the cradle moves the world, etc., but in creeds and codes, in constitutions and Scriptures, in prose and verse, we do not see these lofty paeans recorded or verified in living facts. As a class, women were treated among the Jews as an inferior order of beings, just as they are to day in all civilized nations. And now, as then, men claim to be guided by the will of God. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
We cannot accept any code or creed that uniformly defrauds woman of all her natural rights. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The Bible teaches that woman brought sin and death into the world, that she precipitated the fall of the race, that she was arraigned before the judgment seat of Heaven, tried, condemned and sentenced. Marriage for her was to be a condition of bondage, maternity a period of suffering and anguish, and in silence and subjection, she was to play the role of a dependent on man’s bounty for all her material wants, and for all the information she might desire on the vital questions of the hour, she was commanded to ask her husband at home. Here is the Bible position of woman briefly summed up. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
We cannot accept any code or creed that uniformly defrauds woman of all her natural rights. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
They who say that women do not desire the right of suffrage, that they prefer masculine domination to self government, falsify every page of history, every fact in human experience. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Seeing then that life must ever be a march and a battle, that each soldier must be equipped for his own protection, it is the height of cruelty to rob the individual of a single natural right. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and to her God. He has endeavored in every way that he could to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The primal work in every country, for its own safety, should be the education and freedom of woman. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
We come into this world alone, unlike all who have gone before us. Nature never repeats herself, and the possibilities of one human soul will never be found in another. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
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
The only points in which I differ from all ecclesiastical teaching is that I do not believe that any man ever saw or talked with God, I do not believe that God inspired the Mosaic code, or told the historians what they say he did about woman, for all the religions on the face of the earth degrade her, and so long as woman accepts the position that they assign her, her emancipation is impossible. Whatever the Bible may be made to do in Hebrew or Greek, in plain English it does not exalt and dignify woman. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women’s emancipation. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The canon and civil law; church and state; priests and legislators; all political parties and religious denominations have alike taught that woman was made after man, of man, and for man, an inferior being, subject to man. Creeds, codes, Scriptures and statutes, are all based on this idea. The fashions, forms, ceremonies and customs of society, church ordinances and discipline all grow out of this idea. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
I do not believe that any man ever saw or talked with God, I do not believe that God inspired the Mosaic code, or told the historians what they say he did about woman. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
To throw obstacles in the way of a complete education is like putting out the eyes; to deny the rights of property is like cutting off the hands. To refuse political equality is to rob the ostracized of all selfrespect; of credit in the market place; of recompense in the world of work, of a voice in choosing those who make and administer the law, a choice in the jury before whom they are tried, and in the judge who decides their punishment. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
I thought that the chief thing to be done in order to equal boys was to be learned and courageous. So I decided to study Greek and learn to manage a horse. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The strongest reason for giving woman all the opportunities for higher education, for the full development of her faculties, her forces of mind and body; for giving her the most enlarged freedom of thought and action; a complete emancipation from all forms of bondage, of custom, dependence, superstition; from all the crippling influences of fear is the solitude and personal responsibility of her own individual life. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The best protection any woman can have is courage. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
So it ever must be in the conflicting scenes of life, in the long, weary march, each one walks alone. We may have many friends, love, kindness, sympathy and charity, to smooth our pathway in everyday life, but in the tragedies and triumphs of human experience, each mortal stands alone. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls. Every truth we see is ours to give the world, not to keep for ourselves alone, for in so doing we cheat humanity out of their rights and check our own development. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Nothing strengthens the judgement and quickens the conscience like individual responsibility. Nothing adds such dignity to character as the recognition of one’s self sovereignty; the right to an equal place, everywhere conceded a place earned by personal merit, not an artificial attainment by inheritance, wealth, family and position. Conceding, then, that the responsibilities of life rest equally on man and woman, that their destiny is the same, they need the same preparation for time and eternity. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Women of all classes are awakening to the necessity of self-support, but few are willing to do the ordinary useful work for which they are fitted. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Paul, in speaking of equality as the very soul and essence of Christianity, said, There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
We come into this world alone, unlike all who have gone before us Nature never repeats herself, and the possibilities of one human soul will never be found in another. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
It was just so in the American Revolution, in 1776, the first delicacy the men threw overboard in Boston harbor was the tea, woman’s favorite beverage. The tobacco and whiskey, though heavily taxed, they clung to with the tenacity of the devil fish. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
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. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The only points in which I differ from all ecclesiastical teaching is that I do not believe that any man ever saw or talked with God, I do not believe that God inspired the Mosaic code, or told the historians what they say he did about woman, for all the religions on the face of the earth degrade her, and so long as woman accepts the position that they assign her, her emancipation is impossible. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
To day the woman is Mrs. Richard Roe, tomorrow Mrs. John Doe, and again Mrs. James Smith accordingly as she changes masters, and she has so little self respect that she does not see the insult of the custom. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The Bible and the church, they have been the greatest block in the way of her development. The vantage ground woman holds today is due to all the forces of civilization, to science, discovery, invention, rationalism, the religion of humanity chanted in the golden rule round the globe centuries before the Christian religion was known. It is not to Bibles, prayer books, catechisms, liturgies, the canon law and church creeds and organizations, that woman owes one step in her progress, for all these alike have been hostile, and still are, to her freedom and development. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
