The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women's emancipation.

The Church is a terrible engine of oppression, especially as concerns woman

The strongest reason for giving woman all the opportunities of higher education, for the full development of her faculties, forces of mind and body; for giving her the most enlarged freedom of thought and action; a complete emancipation from all forms of bondage, of custom, dependence, superstition; from all the crippling influences of fear - is the solitude and personal responsibility of her own individual life.

Self-development is a higher duty than self-sacrifice.

The point I wish plainly to bring before you on this occasion is the individuality of each human soul--our Protestant idea, the right of individual conscience and judgment--our republican idea, individual citizenship. In discussing the rights of woman, we are to consider, first, what belongs to her as an individual, in a world of her own, the arbiter of her own destiny, an imaginary Robinson Crusoe with her woman Friday on a solitary island. Her rights under such circumstances are to use all her faculties for her own safety and happiness.

Words cannot describe the indignation a proud woman feels for her sex in disfranchisement.

God, in His wisdom, has so linked the whole human family together that any violence done at one end of the chain is felt throughout its length.