Anna Julia Cooper Quotes

Quotes about:

• The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class - it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Inspiring, Freedom, Party

  Anna Julia Cooper, Charles C. Lemert, Esme Bhan (1998). “The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters”, p.106, Rowman & Littlefield

  110 Copy quote

• Only the BLACK WOMAN can say 'when and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole Negro race enters with me.'

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Race, Black, Special

  A Voice from the South pt. 1 (1892)

  106 Copy quote

• Let our girls feel that we expect something more of them than that they merely look pretty and appear well in society.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Girl, Looks, Wells

  Anna Julia Cooper (1990). “A Voice From the South”, p.78, Oxford University Press

  96 Copy quote

• The colored woman of to-day occupies, one may say, a unique position in this country. In a period of itself transitional and unsettled, her status seems one of the least ascertainable and definitive of all the forces which make for our civilization. She is confronted by both a woman question and a race problem.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Country, Unique, Race

  Anna Julia Cooper, Charles C. Lemert, Esme Bhan (1998). “The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters”, p.112, Rowman & Littlefield

  95 Copy quote

• Peace produced by suppression is neither natural nor desirable.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Conflict, Natural, Resolution

  Anna Julia Cooper (2016). “A Voice from the South”, p.71, Courier Dover Publications

  54 Copy quote

• It is not the intelligent woman v. the ignorant woman; nor the white woman v. the black, the brown, and the red, it is not even the cause of woman v. man. Nay, tis woman's strongest vindication for speaking that the world needs to hear her voice.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Intelligent, Men, Voice

  Anna Julia Cooper, Charles C. Lemert, Esme Bhan (1998). “The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters”, p.107, Rowman & Littlefield

  80 Copy quote

• I care not for the theoretical symmetry and impregnable logic of your moral code, I care not for the hoary respectability and traditional mysticisms of your theological institutions, I care not for the beauty and solemnity of your rituals and religious ceremonies, I care not even for the reasonableness and unimpeachable fairness of your social ethics,--if it does not turn out better, nobler, truer, men and women,--if it does not add to the world's stock of valuable souls,--if it does not give us a sounder, healthier, more reliable product from this great factory of men--I will have none of it.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Religious, Men, Giving

  Anna Julia Cooper, Charles C. Lemert, Esme Bhan (1998). “The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters”, p.187, Rowman & Littlefield

  64 Copy quote

• Let woman's claim be as broad in the concrete as the abstract. We take our stand on the solidarity of humanity, the oneness of life, and the unnaturalness and injustice of all special favoritism, whether of sex, race, country, or condition. If one link of the chain is broken, the chain is broken.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Country, Sex, Race

  58 Copy quote

• I speak for the colored women of the South, because it is there that the millions of blacks in this country have watered the soil with blood and tears, and it is there too that the colored woman of America has made her characteristic history and there her destiny is evolving.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Country, Destiny, Blood

  Anna Julia Cooper, Charles C. Lemert, Esme Bhan (1998). “The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters”, p.202, Rowman & Littlefield

  51 Copy quote

• Bullies are always cowards at heart and may be credited with a pretty safe instinct in scenting their prey.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Bullying, Heart, Safety

  Anna Julia Cooper, Charles C. Lemert, Esme Bhan (1998). “The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters”, p.93, Rowman & Littlefield

  70 Copy quote

• A stream cannot rise higher than its source.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Growth, Source, Streams

  Anna Julia Cooper (2016). “A Voice from the South”, p.11, Courier Dover Publications

  37 Copy quote

• If women were once permitted to read Sophocles and work with logarithms, or to nibble at any side of the apple of knowledge, there would be an end forever to their sewing on buttons and embroidering slippers.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Education, Women, Apples

  Anna Julia Cooper (2016). “A Voice from the South”, p.20, Courier Dover Publications

  12 Copy quote

• We might as well expect to grow trees from leaves as hope to build up a civilization or a manhood without taking into consideration our women and the home life made by them, which must be the root and ground of the whole matter. Let our girls feel that we expect something more of them than that they merely look pretty and appear well in society. Teach them that there is a race with special needs which they and only they can help; that the world needs and is already asking for their trained, efficient forces.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Girl, Home, Civilization

  "The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters".

  44 Copy quote

• All prejudices, whether of race, sect or sex, class pride and caste distinctions are the belittling inheritance and badge of snobs and prigs.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Sex, Pride, Class

  Anna Julia Cooper (2016). “A Voice from the South”, p.54, Courier Dover Publications

  47 Copy quote

• Life must be something more than dilettante speculation.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Speculation, Dilettantes

  Anna Julia Cooper, Charles C. Lemert, Esme Bhan (1998). “The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters”, p.194, Rowman & Littlefield

  34 Copy quote

• Teach [our girls] that there is a race with special needs which they and only they can help; that the world needs and is already asking for their trained, efficient forces.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Girl, Race, Special

  Anna Julia Cooper (1990). “A Voice From the South”, p.78, Oxford University Press

  27 Copy quote

• The old, subjective, stagnant, indolent and wretched life for woman has gone. She has as many resources as men, as many activities beckon her on. As large possibilities swell and inspire her heart.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Heart, Men, Inspire

  Anna Julia Cooper (1990). “A Voice From the South”, p.70, Oxford University Press

  40 Copy quote

• One needs occasionally to stand aside from the hum and rush of human interests and passions to hear the voices of God.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Passion, Voice, Needs

  Anna Julia Cooper, Charles C. Lemert, Esme Bhan (1998). “The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters”, p.114, Rowman & Littlefield

  36 Copy quote

• ... woman's cause is the cause of the weak; and when all the weak shall have received their due consideration, then woman will have her "rights," and the Indian will have his rights, and the Negro will have his rights, and all the strong will have learned at last to deal justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly; and our fair land will have been taught the secret of universal courtesy which is after all nothing but the art, the science, and the religion of regarding one's neighbor as one's self, and to do for him as we would, were conditions swapped, that he do for us.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Art, Strong, Rights

  35 Copy quote

• Each is under the most sacred obligation not to squander the material committed to him, not to sap his strength in folly and vice, and to see at the least that he delivers a product worthy the labor and cost which have been expended on him.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Vices, Cost, Sap

  Anna Julia Cooper (1990). “A Voice From the South”, p.281, Oxford University Press

  8 Copy quote

• The impulse of humanity toward social progress is like the movement in the currents of a great water system, from myriad sources and under myriad circumstances and conditions, beating onward, ever onward toward its eternity, the Ocean.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Ocean, Water, Humanity

  Anna Julia Cooper, Charles C. Lemert, Esme Bhan (1998). “The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters”, p.339, Rowman & Littlefield

  36 Copy quote

• tis woman's strongest vindication for speaking that the world needs to hear her voice. It would be subversive of every human interest that the cry of one-half the human family be stifled. ... The world has had to limp along with the wobbling gait and one-sided hesitancy of a man with one eye. Suddenly the bandage is removed from the other eye and the whole body is filled with light. It sees a circle where before it saw a segment. The darkened eye restored, every member rejoices with it.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Women, Eye, Circles

  9 Copy quote

• It is the curse of minorities in this power-worshipping world that either from fear or from an uncertain policy of expedience they distrust their own standards and hesitate to give voice to their deeper convictions, submitting supinely to estimates and characterizations of themselves as handed down by a not unprejudiced dominant majority.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Voice, Giving, Majority

  Anna Julia Cooper (1988). “A Voice From the South”, p.43, Oxford University Press

  15 Copy quote

• ... religion (ought to be if it isn't) a great deal more than mere gratification of the instinct for worship linked with the straight-teaching of irreproachable credos. Religion must be life made true; and life is action, growth, development--begun now and ending never.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Life, Teaching, Growth

  Anna Julia Cooper, Charles C. Lemert, Esme Bhan (1998). “The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters”, p.194, Rowman & Littlefield

  17 Copy quote

• A race cannot be purified from without.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Race

  Anna Julia Cooper (2016). “A Voice from the South”, p.11, Courier Dover Publications

  5 Copy quote

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