Frances Wright Quotes - Page 3

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• 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

  Rights, Limits, Honest

  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

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• the language of truth is too simple for inexperienced ears.

  Frances Wright

  Truth, Simple, Ears

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

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• An opinion, right or wrong, can never constitute a moral offense, nor be in itself a moral obligation. It may be mistaken; it may involve an absurdity, or a contradiction. It is a truth; or it is an error: it can never be a crime or a virtue.

  Frances Wright

  Errors, May, Opinion

  Frances Wright (1850). “A few days in Athens: being the translation of a Greek manuscript discovered in Herculaneum”, p.166

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

  Frances Wright

  Country, Character, 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

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• There is a vulgar persuasion, that the ignorance of women, by favoring their subordination, ensures their utility. 'Tis the same argument employed by the ruling few against the subject many in aristocracies; by the rich against the poor in democracies; by the learned professions against the people in all countries.

  Frances Wright

  Country, Ignorance, People

  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.55

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• It is singular to look round upon a country where the dreams of sages, smiled at as utopian, seem distinctly realized, a people voluntarily submitting to laws of their own imposing, with arms in their hands respecting the voice of a government which their breath created and which their breath could in a moment destroy!

  Frances Wright

  Dream, Country, Government

  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.362

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• 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

  Liberty, Steps, Injury

  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

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• 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

  Freedom, Blessing, Giving

  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

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• ... it would be impossible for women to stand in higher estimation than they do here. The deference that is paid to them at all times and in all places has often occasioned me as much surprise as pleasure.

  Frances Wright

  Would Be, Impossible, Surprise

  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.312

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• So long as the mental and moral instruction of man is left solely in the hands of hired servants of the public--let them be teachers of religion, professors of colleges, authors of books, or editors of journals or periodical publications, dependent upon their literary incomes for their daily bread, so long shall we hear but half the truth; and well if we hear so much. Our teachers, political, scientific, moral, or religious; our writers, grave or gay, are compelled to administer to our prejudices and to perpetuate our ignorance.

  Frances Wright

  Teacher, Religious, Book

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• Of the thousands who have paid homage to virtue, barely one has thought to inspect the pedestal on which it stands.

  Frances Wright

  Pedestal, Virtue, Paid

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• 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

  Cities, Philadelphia, House

  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

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• ... 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

  Men, Self, Broken

  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

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• Let us enquire. Who, then, shall challenge the words? Why are they challenged. And by whom? By those who call themselves the guardians of morality, and who are the constituted guardians of religion. Enquiry, it seems, suits not them. They have drawn the line, beyond which human reason shall not pass -- above which human virtue shall not aspire! All that is without their faith or above their rule, is immorality, is atheism, is -- I know not what.

  Frances Wright

  Challenges, Atheism, Suits

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• I dare say you marvel sometimes at my independent way of walking through the world just as if nature had made me of your sex instead of poor Eve's. Trust me, my beloved friend, the mind has no sex but what habit and education give it, and I who was thrown in infancy upon the world like a wreck upon the waters have learned, as well to struggle with the elements as any male child of Adam.

  Frances Wright

  Sex, Children, Struggle

  Letter to Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, on February 11, 1822. "Lafayette in Two Worlds" by Lloyd Kramer, p. 158, 1996.

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• 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

  Sex, Fall, Destiny

  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”

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• It was in this year, 1828, that the standard of "the Christian Party in Politics" was openly unfurled... This was an evident attempt, through the influence of the clergy over the female mind - until this hour lamentably neglected in the United States - to effect a union of Church and State.

  Frances Wright

  Christian, Party, Years

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• I am neither Jew nor Gentile, Mahomedan nor Theist; I am but a member of the human family.

  Frances Wright

  Members, Jew, Theist

  Frances Wright (1829). “Course of Popular Lectures”, p.148

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