Dora Russell Quotes

• Humanity will ever seek but never attain perfection. Let us at least survive and go on trying.

  Dora Russell

  Perfection, Humanity, Survival

  "The Religion of the Machine Age". Book by Dora Russell, 1983.

  46 Copy quote

• Feminists have emphasized for a long time the importance of each woman's individual entity and the necessity of economic independence. Perhaps it was necessary. But now I think we need some emphasis on the instinctive side of life, sex and motherhood.... Life isn't all earning your living. Unfortunately we fall in love and Feminism must take that into consideration.

  Dora Russell

  Falling In Love, Sex, Motherhood

  "Who is Dora Black?". Equal Rights Magazine, June 5, 1926.

  28 Copy quote

• If an adult uses violence on a child, the child will naturally assume that he too, has the right to use it on one smaller or weaker.

  Dora Russell

  Children, Adults, Use

  18 Copy quote

• Democracy can only spring from practising it early, and democratic action was not to expected from young people brought up under a close authoritarian system.

  Dora Russell

  Spring, Hymns, People

  Dora Russell (1975). “The Tamarisk Tree: My quest for liberty and love”

  13 Copy quote

• Because men have so long ruled the world, it does not follow that the philosophy by which they have ruled it is the correct one.

  Dora Russell

  Philosophy, Men, Long

  8 Copy quote

• One of the problems with industrialism is that it's based on the premise of more and more. It has to keep expanding to keep going. More and more television sets. More and more cars. More and more steel, and more and more pollution. We don't question whether we need any more or what we'll do with them. We just have to keep on making more and more if we are to keep going. Sooner or later it's going to collapse. ... Look what we have done already with the principle of more and more when it comes to nuclear weapons.

  Dora Russell

  Car, Principles, Needs

  8 Copy quote

• Marriage laws, the police, armies and navies are the mark of human incompetence.

  Dora Russell

  Marriage, Army, Law

  "The Right to Be Happy". Book by Dora Russell, p. 241, 1927.

  11 Copy quote

• We want better reasons for having children than not knowing how to prevent them. Nor should we represent motherhood as something so common and easy that everyone can go through it without harm or suffering and rear her children competently and well.

  Dora Russell

  Children, Motherhood, Knowing

  "Hypatia". Book by Dora Russell, ch. 4, 1925.

  8 Copy quote

• I read recently in an article by G.K. Chesterton, that sex without gestation and parturition is like blowing the trumpets and waving the flags without doing any of the fighting. From a woman such words, though displaying inexperience, might come with dignity; from a man they are an unforgivable, intolerable insult. What is man's part in sex but a perpetual waving of flags and blowing of trumpets and avoidance of the fighting?

  Dora Russell

  Sex, Fighting, Men

  4 Copy quote

• We have never yet had a labor Government that knew what taking power really means; they always act like second-class citizens.

  Dora Russell

  Mean, Government, Class

  12 Copy quote

• Industrialism is the religion with 'the machine' as the god going to answer all the prayers. Communism and capitalism were just competing sects.

  Dora Russell

  Prayer, Machines, Answers

  6 Copy quote

• The origin of the stupid ideal of womanhood against which men as well as women to-day are still fighting was the asceticism of the Christian religion; and, unless St. Paul was a woman in disguise, I fail to see how woman is to be blamed for a conception of her place and duty from which she has suffered more than anybody else.

  Dora Russell

  Christian, Stupid, Fighting

  7 Copy quote

• We want far better reasons for having children than not knowing how to prevent them.

  Dora Russell

  Children, Women, Memorable

  Hypatia ch. 4 (1925)

  6 Copy quote

• Animals we are, and animals we remain, and the path to our regeneration and happiness, if there be such a path, lies through our animal nature.

  Dora Russell

  Lying, Animal, Path

  4 Copy quote

• What a denial of our humanity that at the centers of power, where decisions are made, there is no room for nurturing, for love, and children. There is more to life than the 'inhuman' work place. It is terrible that many men do not know that: it is a tragedy if women follow them.

  Dora Russell

  Children, Business, Work

  4 Copy quote

• What does one do about the dead? They live forever.

  Dora Russell

  Forever, Doe, Live Forever

  4 Copy quote

• We do not want our world to perish. But in our quest for knowledge, century by century, we have placed all our trust in a cold, impartial intellect which only brings us nearer to destruction.

  Dora Russell

  Knowledge, Our World, Quests

  "Challenge to the Cold War". Book by Dora Russell, Vol. 3, Ch. 14, 1985.

  9 Copy quote

• Comfort is bought at too high a price.

  Dora Russell

  Comfort

  Dora Russell (1975). “The Tamarisk Tree: My quest for liberty and love”

  4 Copy quote

• anybody who has anything abusive to say of women, whether ancient or modern, can command a vast public in the popular press and a ready agreement from the average publisher.

  Dora Russell

  Agreement, Average, Ancient

  4 Copy quote

• Art that means anything in the life of a community must bear some relation to current interpretations of the mystery of the universe. Our rigid separation of the humanities and the sciences has temporarily left our art stranded or stammering and incoherent. Both art and science ought to be blended in our early education of our children's emotions and powers of observation, and that harmony carried forward in later education.

  Dora Russell

  Art, Children, Mean

  "The Right to Be Happy". Book by Dora Russell, ch. v, p. 235, 1927.

  6 Copy quote

• Strictly speaking, no person who believes that wars between classes and nations are inevitable is fit to be in charge of the destiny of children. To believe in the unity of the human race and get children to believe it in early youth would mean the creation of that unity and the end of war.

  Dora Russell

  Children, War, Believe

  "The Right to Be Happy". Book by Dora Russell, ch. v, p. 205, 1927.

  4 Copy quote

• There is no instinct that has been so maligned, suppressed, abused, and distorted by religious teaching as the instinct of sex.

  Dora Russell

  Religious, Sex, Teaching

  4 Copy quote

• We have heeded no wisdom offering guidance.

  Dora Russell

  Wisdom, Offering, Guidance

  "Tamarisk Tree Volume 3: Challenge to the Cold War". Book by Dora Russell , ch. 14, 1985.

  14 Copy quote

• Industrial societies can only be run successfully by dictators or oligarchs.

  Dora Russell

  Running, Society, Dictator

  4 Copy quote

• Following the rise of the Labour Party it seemed reasonable, in 1927, to expect, or at least hope, that co-operation for the common good might gradually replace the competitiveness of capitalism.

  Dora Russell

  Party, Might, Common

  17 Copy quote

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