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Frances Wright Quotes - Page 3

... we have broken down the self-respecting spirit of man with nursery tales and priestly threats, and we dare to assert, that inproportion as we have prostrated our understanding and degraded our nature, we have exhibited virtue, wisdom, and happiness, in our words, our actions, and our lives!

Frances Wright (1829). “Course of popular lectures as delivered by Frances Wright: with three addresses on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789. Second edition”, p.115

It has already been observed that women, wherever placed, however high or low in the scale of cultivation, hold the destinies of human kind. Men will ever rise or fall to the level of the other sex.

Frances Wright, Cairns Collection of American Women Writers (1834*). “Course of popular lectures: with three addresses, on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789”

Persecution for opinion is the master vice of society.

Frances Wright (1829). “Course of Popular Lectures”, p.128

It is in vain that we would circumscribe the power of one half of our race, and that half by far the most important and influential.

Frances Wright (1829). “Course of popular lectures; with 3 addresses on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789”, p.24

the language of truth is too simple for inexperienced ears.

Frances Wright (1850). “A few days in Athens: being the translation of a Greek manuscript discovered in Herculaneum”, p.169

There is but one honest limit to the rights of a sentient being; it is where they touch the rights of another sentient being.

Frances Wright (1829). “Course of popular lectures; with 3 addresses on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789”, p.27

The condition of women affords in all countries the best criterion by which to judge the character of men.

Frances Wright (1821). “Views of society and manners in America: in a series of letters from that country to a friend in England, during the years 1818, 1819, and 1820”, p.423

The sciences have ever been the surest guides to virtue.

Frances Wright (1829). “Course of popular lectures; with 3 addresses on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789”, p.78

However novel it may appear, I shall venture the assertion, that, until women assume the place in society which good sense and good feeling alike assign to them, human improvement must advance but feebly.

Frances Wright (1829). “Course of popular lectures; with 3 addresses on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789”, p.24

I never walked through the streets of any city with as much satisfaction as those of Philadelphia. The neatness and cleanliness of all animate and inanimate things, houses, pavements, and citizens, is not to be surpassed.

Frances Wright (1821). “Views of society and manners in America: in a series of letters from that country to a friend in England, during the years 1818, 1819, and 1820”, p.83

Do we exert our own liberties without injury to others - we exert them justly; do we exert them at the expense of others - unjustly. And, in thus doing, we step from the sure platform of liberty upon the uncertain threshold of tyranny.

Frances Wright (1829). “Course of popular lectures; with 3 addresses on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789”, p.27

To give liberty to a slave before he understands its value is, perhaps, rather to impose a penalty than to bestow a blessing.

Frances Wright (1821). “Views of society and manners in America: in a series of letters from that country to a friend in England, during the years 1818, 1819, and 1820”, p.518