The great, the fundamental need of any nation, any race, is for heroism, devotion, sacrifice; and there cannot be heroism, devotion, or sacrifice in a primarily skeptical spirit.

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.

... women are more quiet. They don't feel called to mount a barrel and harangue by the hour every time they imagine they have produced an idea.

... while our men seem thoroughly abreast of the times on almost every other subject, when they strike the woman question they drop back into sixteenth century logic. They leave nothing to be desired generally in regard to gallantry and chivalry, but they actually do not seem sometimes to have outgrown that old contemporary of chivalry--the idea that women may stand on pedestals or live in doll houses,... but they must not furrow their brows with thought or attempt to help men tug at the great questions of the world.

If our vaunted rule of the people does not breed nobler men and women than monarchies have done it must and will inevitably give place to something better.

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.

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.