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Ernestine Rose

65 quotes

“What rights have women? …(they are) punished for breaking laws which they have no voice in making. All avenues to enterprise and honors are closed against them. If poor, they must drudge for a mere pittance— if of the wealthy classes, they must be dressed dolls of fashion — parlor puppets…”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1844 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at the Social Reform Convention, Boston, 1844 (Kolmerten, p. 49)
“…There is ten times more in the world than would maintain all in yet unknown luxury. Yet how much misery there is in our midst; not because there is not enough, but owing to the misdirection of it.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1845 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at a convention organized by Ernestine and William Rose in honor of a visit to New York by Robert Owen (Boston Investigator, May 14, 1845)
“We have heard a great deal of our Pilgrim Fathers…but who has heard of the Pilgrim Mothers? Did they not endure as many perils, encounter as many hardships, and do as much to form and fashion the institutions of New England as the Pilgrim Fathers? And were not their trials, and is not their glory equally great? Yet they are hardly remembered.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1850 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at the 1850 National Woman's Rights Convention, Worcester, Massachusetts (Suhl, p. 112)
“Who that has human blood flowing in his veins, who that ever felt the warm gush of affection thrill his being, can hesitate whether to throw his weight into the balance of life and freedom, or that of chains, oppression or death?....to him who fears only your opposition...silence is consent. And silence where life and liberty is at stake, where by a timely protest we could stay the destroyer's hand, and do not do so, is as criminal as giving actual aid to the oppressor, for it answers his purpose...”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1852 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at the Thomas Paine anniversary celebration, New York, Jan. 29, 1852
“I suppose you all grant that woman is a human being. If she has a right to life she has a right to earn a support for that life. If a human being, she has a right to have her powers and faculties as a human being developed. If developed, she has a right to exercise them.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1853 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: At a New York State convention, Rochester, N.Y. (1853), quoted in Kolmerten, Carol A., The American Life of Ernestine L. Rose, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1999, p. 129-130.
“For here lies the corner stone of all the injustices done woman, the wrong idea from which all other wrongs proceed. She is not acknowledged as mistress of herself. For her cradle to her grave she is another's. We do indeed need and demand the other rights of which I have spoken, but let us first obtain ourselves.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1853 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at the National Woman's Rights Convention, Cleveland, Ohio. 1853.
“superstition in fashion is always called religion, till the religion becomes out of fashion-then it again changes back into superstition.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1856 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to the Editor (April 30, 1856)
“There is enough to do for all. In gratitude to the past we owe a duty to the future. Let every one, then, be true to his highest convictions, and faithful to the cause of human progress. Truth is the highest aim in principle, and goodness the noblest object in practice.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1856 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to the Editor (April 30, 1856)
“I am perfectly willing, nay, desirous, that the sentiments and principles I advocate should be known and criticized by the public; but I am not willing to have imputed to me sentiments which do not belong to me, and, believing that you do not willfully misrepresent me, take the liberty to correct some errors in regard to myself, in the account of the Rutland Convention, in your paper of this morning.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1858 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: letter to the editor, The New York Times (1858)
“I ask for a law of Divorce…to prevent the crimes and immoralities now practiced…too often under the name of marriage…I believe in true marriages, and therefore I ask for a law to free men and women from false ones.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1860 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at the Tenth National Woman's Rights Convention, Cooper Institute, New York, 1860. ("History of Woman Suffrage," Vol.1, p. 731)
“Not long after we arrived here, nearly 28 years ago, we saw an advertisement for a meeting at Tammany Hall to discuss Robert Owen's Community principles. Being interested in the subject we attended the meeting, but to our surprise, and I must say regret, the various speakers, instead of debating Owen's Community, debated Owen. I told them that, according to the notice, principles and not persons were to be discussed. In every controversy it is well to keep the two distinct.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1864 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: letter to the editor of The Boston Investigator (1864). Included in Mistress of Herself: Speeches and Letters of Ernestine L. Rose and excerpt here
“I did not intend to publish anything about myself, for I had no other ambition except to work for the cause of humanity, irrespective of sex, sect, country, or color...All that I can tell you is, that I used my humble powers to the uttermost, and raised my voice in behalf of Human Rights in general, and the elevation and Rights of Woman in particular, nearly all my life.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1877 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: letter to Susan B. Anthony (January 9, 1877)
“thirty or forty years ago, the press was not sufficiently educated in the rights of women, even to notice, much less to report speeches as it does now”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1877 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: letter to Susan B. Anthony (January 9, 1877)
“Say to the friends. Go on, go on, halt not and rest not. Remember that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" and of right. Much has been achieved; but the main, the vital thing, has yet to come. The suffrage is the magic key to the statute-the insignia of citizenship in a republic.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1878 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: letter to the National Woman Suffrage Association Convention (July 19, 1878)
“the suffrage is not only a badge of citizenship but a mental and moral elevator that prepares the possessor of it to self-respect and dignity and prepares him for greater usefulness and higher and nobler aims in the progress of Humanity.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1880 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: letter to Elizabeth Cady Stanton for the National Woman Suffrage Association Convention (May 15, 1880)
“Each in accordance with her abilities and powers - all for the good of Humanity.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...none but those who feel it, can tell the trials and sufferings of those who, for the cause of Freedom-the cause of Truth-have to sacrifice home, wealth, friends, all that makes life desirable, and become strangers and wanderers in foreign lands.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To my mind the whole state of things is wrong. Society is based on falsehood, force, and fraud, instead of truth, kindness, and a well directed union of and I trust that the time will come, when the causes that transform our fair earth into one great battle-field and charnel house, will be removed - when the present state of slavery and violence will be superseded by freedom based on human rights, without distinction of sex, class, party, country, or color.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Human rights include the rights of all, not only man, but woman, not only white but black; wherever there is a being called human, his rights are as full and expressive as his existence, and ought to be without limits or distinction of sex, country, or color…and only ignorance, superstition, and tyranny — both the basis and the influence of the Bible - deprive him of it.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We have been told, to-day, that it was a woman that agitated Great Britain to its very centre, before emancipation could be effected in her colonies. Woman must go hand in hand with man in every great and noble cause, if success would be insured.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“were only that great, noble truth of the Declaration of Independence carried out, as it ought to be, there would be no need of our meeting here to-day. Then indeed might we all rejoice when the Fourth of July arrives.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A gentleman once asked me in the South, what I thought, on the whole, of South Carolina. I told him: ”I am sorry to say that you are a century, at least, behind in the means of civilization.” He wanted to know why I thought so. I said: “The only civilization you have exists among your slaves: for if industry and the mechanical arts are the great criterion of civilization (and I believe they are), then certainly the slaves are the only civilized ones among you, because they do all the work.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Mathematics lays the foundation of all the exact sciences. It teaches the art of combining numbers, of calculating and measuring distances, how to solve problems, to weigh mountains, to fathom the depths of the ocean; but gives no directions how to ascertain the existence of a God.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1861 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1881, A Defence of Atheism: A lecture delivered in Mercantile Hall, Boston on 10 April, 1861, p. 4
“Astronomy tells us of the wonders of the Solar System—the eternally revolving planets, the rapidity and certainty of their motions, the distance from planet to planet, from star to star. It predicts with astonishing and marvellous precision the phenomena of eclipses, the visibility upon our Earth of comets, and proves the immutable law of gravitation, but is entirely silent on the existence of a God.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1861 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1881, A Defence of Atheism: A lecture delivered in Mercantile Hall, Boston on 10 April, 1861, p. 5
“The Universe of Matter gives us no record of his existence. Where next shall we search? Enter the Universe of Mind, read the millions of volumes written on the subject, and in all the speculations, the assertions, the assumptions, the theories, and the creeds, you can only find Man stamped in an indelible impress his own mind on every page. In describing his God, he delineated his own character: the picture he drew represents in living and ineffaceable colors the epoch of his existence—the period he lived in.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1861 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1881, A Defence of Atheism: A lecture delivered in Mercantile Hall, Boston on 10 April, 1861, p. 5
“It was a great mistake to say that God made man in his image. Man, in all ages, made his God in his own image; and we find that just in accordance with his civilization, his knowledge, his experience, his taste, his refinement, his sense of right, of justice, of freedom, and humanity,—so has he made his God. But whether coarse or refined; cruel and vindictive, or kind and generous; an implacable tyrant, or a gentle and loving father;—it still was the emanation of his own mind—the picture of himself.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1861 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1881, A Defence of Atheism: A lecture delivered in Mercantile Hall, Boston on 10 April, 1861, p. 6
“But the Bible, we are told, reveals this great mystery. Where Nature is dumb, and Man ignorant, Revelation speaks in the authoritative voice of prophecy.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1861 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1881, A Defence of Atheism: A lecture delivered in Mercantile Hall, Boston on 10 April, 1861, p. 7
“Human freedom and true democracy are identical.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“justice, like charity, must begin at home.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I speak for myself. I do not wish any one else to be responsible for my opinions. I am loyal only to justice and humanity. Let the Administration give evidence that they too are for justice to all, without exception, without distinction, and I, for one, had I ten thousand lives, would gladly lay them down to secure this boon of freedom to humanity. But without this certainty, I am not unconditionally loyal to the Administration. We women need not be, for the law has never yet recognized us.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“we have asked Congress, in the reconstruction of the Republic, to place it upon a sound foundation.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In proportion to power is responsibility.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“After all, we come down to the root of all evil — to money...Give us one million of dollars, and we will have the elective franchise at the very next session of our Legislature. (Laughter and applause.) But as we have not got a million of dollars, we want a million of voices. There are always two ways of obtaining an object. If we had had the money, we could have bought the Legislature and the elective franchise long before now. But as we have not, we must create a public opinion, and for that we must have voices.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Men can pray in secret, but must vote in public. (Applause.) Hence the ballot, of the two, ought to be the most respected; and it would be if women were once there; but it never will be until they are there. We have been told this evening that it is not good for man to be alone. No; if it was not well for him to be alone in the garden of Eden, it surely cannot be well for him to be alone at the ballot-box.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are a great many objections urged against the enfranchisement of women; and one that I have recently heard is that women would not go to war. Perhaps, if women had the franchise, men would not need to go to war neither. (Applause.) And this is one great reason why I demand the franchise. War is only a relic of the old barbarisms. So long as woman is deprived of her right, man is only next door to a barbarian. If he were not, he never would go to war.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Henry Ward Beecher..said, in regard to woman's franchise, that the ballot is a teacher...Yes, it is a teacher. Yet, when a man alone has the ballot, it fails to be his teacher. It has not taught him the great lesson that the ballot is useless, that it becomes perverted and corrupt, when woman is kept from it.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For my part, I never knew a social evil to be removed by force of law...The prevention of that social evil must commence in the nursery. If you will bring up woman as you ought to bring up men—not as you do bring up men—acknowledging her right to live the same as men, giving her the same advantages and the same rights that men have, there will be no need to enact laws against a "social evil"...I say to the Legislature that, if you enact laws against social evils, whatever those laws are, let them be alike for man and for woman”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let woman have the franchise; let all the avenues of society be thrown open before her, according to her powers and her capacities, and there will be no need to talk about social evils. Depend upon it that she will not only take care of herself, but will help to take care of man, which is more than he has ever done for himself.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What makes man act wrong? Is it his desire to do it? We have been and are yet told that the heart of man is wicked, and in accordance with this, such arrangements have been made in society as to fulfill the prophecy, and make him bad indeed. It is the greatest libel that has ever been put upon nature. Every human being has a tendency to do good, but the fundamental error, that man forms his own opinions, feelings, and acts, has made him bad. He was considered as a being independent of every man around him; hence followed the isolated condition of society. These two fundamental errors are the cause of all evil; they make every man an enemy to his neighbor.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1845 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at the Infidel Convention (May 4, 1845)
“Those who create the most, get the least; those who build the largest castles, often have not where to lay their heads: and then we say that man is bad by nature, because if he has not a crumb to eat, he will take some from his neighbor. Why is it man has never been placed in a position to make himself happy? Isolation of interest is the cause—the contrary is the remedy. I have thrown out these few hints for you to reflect on. We must inquire what sort of beings we are, and are we rightly situated? Ponder over these questions. The welfare of the race depends upon them, and the application of the remedy is the reversion of the present arrangements of society. Ignorance is the evil-knowledge will be the remedy. Knowledge not of what sort of beings we shall be hereafter, or what is beyond the skies, but a knowledge pertaining to terra firma, and we may have here all the power, goodness and love that we have been taught belongs to God himself.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1845 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at the Infidel Convention (May 4, 1845)
“we have passed through a year full of the most interesting, startling, and important events-events which, though they were the effects of tyranny and oppression, will become the causes of an entire change in the political and social affairs of Europe, perhaps the world. It is a terrible but a glorious strife for a nation to struggle for liberty. The task is more than Herculean for a people who have for many years been crushed to the earth, to rise and shake off the yoke that oppresses them; and the longer they silently submit to a tyrannical government, the less able they become to emancipate themselves from its thralldom. This holds good with all governments, for even the best of them, as at present constituted, press like an incubus on the energies and vitality of the people; and in one great particular all governments are alike—namely, in the usurpation of power. The more you give them, the more they claim, until they have deprived you of the power of resistance.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1849 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at the Thomas Paine Celebration (January 29, 1849)
“a bright star is beaming in the moral horizon, that speaks to us with a prophetic voice of the future destiny of man. Its effulgent light has already eclipsed the diadems in the crowns of Europe. "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity," that glorious trinity that requires no miraculous power to understand it, no priest nor prophet to interpret it, makes itself understood by its own power, for already has it caused thrones to shake, scepters to bow down, and miters to be crushed. Kings and priests tremble before this new-born messenger of peace, for well they know, that if it generally rules, "Othello's occupation's gone." But until Humanity assumes her reign, nations like individual man will have to struggle for life and liberty, for liberty cannot exist without equality of rights-and as long as we have the favored few, must we also have the injured many, and under such a state of things, liberty is only an empty sound. But whenever liberty shall be based on equality, the only sound basis upon which a true republic can rest, then man will find that there are stronger and far more beautiful bonds between man and man, than those which mere conventionality or commercial intercourse has forced upon him. His mind and feelings will become expanded until he will recognize in every man a brother, and in every woman a sister...allow me to ask you, my sisters, shall we remain idle spectators at the death struggle of Freedom because an ignorant and degrading opinion prevails, that participating in a noble act is out of the sphere of woman? Do you want precedents and examples where woman has burst her fetters, and stood up in defense of Humanity? We need not search the pages of ancient history: there are enough in our day.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1849 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at the Thomas Paine Celebration (January 29, 1849)
“We were told that if woman would only do her duty, she would have all her rights, implying that our rights spring from our duties. If we reflect a moment on the subject, we will find this is an error, a very prevalent error, and therefore the more necessary to be corrected. Our duties spring from our rights, our rights from our wants. The child, when it comes into existence, possesses rights arising from its necessities, but as yet it owes no duty to any one; while the parents having exercised certain rights and privileges, they owe certain duties to the child, which, when grown up to understand the relation it sustains to its parents and to society then, owes in return duties in accordance with the rights and privileges it enjoys. The more rights we enjoy, the greater the duties we owe. And he who enjoys most rights, owes in return the most duties. And therefore we say to society, you, who enjoy all the rights, are in duty bound to protect every individual member in his rights. But as it is, while man enjoys all the rights, he preaches all the duties to woman. And hence we say to man—not in the spirit of censure, but charity and kindness, yet firmly do we say to him, that, instead of writing and preaching so much about the duties of woman, it is high time, as the elder brother, to set us the example in the performance of your duties. And in no way can you better evince your earnest desire to do so, than by giving woman her rights. And depend upon it she will not fail in the performance of her duties, not only as wife and mother, but also as a free, enlightened, rational member of the great family of man, highly conducive to the elevation and happiness of all.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1851 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at the second National Woman's Rights Convention (October 1851)
“It is of very little importance in what geographical position a person is born, but it is important whether his ideas are based upon facts that can stand the test of reason, and his acts are conducive to the happiness of society. Yet, being a foreigner, I hope you will have some charity on account of speaking in a foreign language. Yes, I am an example of the universality of our claims; for not American women only, but a daughter of poor, crushed Poland, and the down-trodden and persecuted people called the Jews, “a child of Israel," pleads for the equal rights of her sex...In claiming our rights, we claim the rights of humanity; it is not for the interest of woman only, but for the interest of all. The interest of the sexes cannot be separated - together they must enjoy or suffer - both are one in the race.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1852 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at the third National Woman's Rights Convention (September 1852)
“The object of my mission was to rouse the people to the presumptive evidence that the immutable truth upon which the Declaration of Independence is based, and which immortalizes the name of Thomas Jefferson, namely, that "all men are created equal, and endowed with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," includes woman too. Self evident as this truth is, yet it is no easy task to enforce it upon minds who never had a correct conception of the true principles upon which alone a republic can securely stand, who are so thoroughly Know-Nothing as to be ignorant that human rights recognize no sex, country, or color. It is easier to win a battle than to conquer minds filled with Know-Nothingism. It requires far more true courage and persevering heroism to carry on a moral war than a physical one. It is much easier to take a fortress, composed even of granite, than to storm a citadel of prejudice sanctified by superstition, engrafted by age, and strengthened by habit; and well might those who are engaged in this moral war exclaim: "These are the times that try women's souls.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1855 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at the Thomas Paine Celebration (January 29, 1855)
“I have endeavored to the best of my powers and ability to serve the cause of progress and humanity; to advocate what to me seemed the truth; to defend human nature from the libel cast upon it by superstition; to claim human rights irrespective of sex, country, or color-in fine, to devote and direct all my efforts to the elevation of the ignorant, the poor, and the oppressed...with an earnest desire my aim has been steadily directed onward and upward; and if my labors have not been as successful as I could wish, they have, I hope, at least to some extent, had the effect to eradicate error, to inculcate truth, and to instill charity and kindness for the failings and frailties of misdirected human nature.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1856 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to the Editor (April 30, 1856)
“The question which now distracts the country is no longer one of color-it is freedom or slavery, life or death of the North-it is whether a vile mob, headed by corrupted and treacherous politicians, who would dissolve not only the Union but the universe to get themselves into office, shall be allowed to trample the dignity, the manhood and the liberties of the North in the dust - whether we shall barter away the rights, the progress and the civilization of the free States for the inestimable blessing to belong to South Carolina. But President Buchanan, by whose criminal contrivance the mob was let loose, being too cowardly and inefficient to weather the storm he helped to raise, took refuge in fasting and prayer; but while the North prayed, the South acted. Ask the national forts stolen, the flag trampled under foot, the laws violated, the ships fired into, the government disgraced, which of the prayers was most successful? Prayed! for what? One party for secession, the other for non-secession; . . . one side claims the Bible for and the other claims it against slavery, and they both are right. That book is so accommodating that it proves and disproves anything you choose. Chameleon like, it reflects the color of the glass you look through.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1861 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at the Thomas Paine Celebration (January 29, 1861)
“…The nature of the Jew is governed by the same laws as human nature in general…In England, France, Germany and in the rest of Europe (except Spain), in spite of the barbarous treatment and deadly persecution they suffered, they have lived and spread and outlived much of the poisonous rancor and prejudice against them, and Europe has been none the worse on their account. Of course, where they are still under the Christian lash, as in Rome, where for the glory of God, their children even are stolen from them, self-preservation forces them to be narrow and exclusive. In other countries more civilized and just, they are so too; they progress just as fast as the world they live in will permit them...human nature (Jewish included) cannot remain tied down to all eternity...let us, as Infidels, while promoting liberty and spreading useful knowledge, to prevent any sect from getting power, not add to the prejudice already existing towards the Jews, or any other sect.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1864 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: letter to the editor of The Boston Investigator (1864)
“We need no other; but we must, reassert in 1876 what 1776 so gloriously proclaimed and call upon the law-makers and the law-breakers to carry that declaration to its logical consistency by giving woman the right of representation in the government which she helps to maintain; a voice in the laws by which she is governed, and all the rights and privileges society can bestow, the same as to man, or disprove its validity. We need no other declaration. All we ask is to have the laws based on the same foundation upon which that declaration rests, viz.: upon equal justice, and not upon sex. Whenever the rights of man are claimed, moral consistency points to the equal rights of woman.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) first seen 1876 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: letter to Susan B. Anthony (July 4, 1876)
“...[woman] must do something to break the chains that ignorance and superstition have woven around her, and tied into a Gordian knot. She must untie it with the sharp points of reason, dissolve the links by the light of knowledge, and thus, bursting the unholy fetters, she must claim her rights equal with man, and then indeed will she be a woman. Her rights, and an education to develop all her powers, will strengthen her affections, purify her sympathies, refine her feelings, mature her judgment, and fit her for the vicissitudes of life as a companion to an intellectual man—a mother to train her children to become such-and above all, an honorable and useful member of society.”
Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source