Without fear of contradiction, I can safely say that every step in progress that woman has made she has been assailed by ecclesiastics, that her most vigilant unwearied opponents have always been the clergy.

We are the only class in history that has been left to fight its battles alone, unaided by the ruling powers. White labor and the freed black men had their champions, but where are ours?

All who live to a good old age have a genius for sleep.

No privileged order ever did see the wrongs of its own victims.

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

I poured out the torrent of my long-standing discontent and I challenged them to do and dare anything.

I can truly say, after an experience of seventy years, that all the cares and anxieties, the trials and disappointments of my whole life, are light, when balanced with my sufferings in childhood and youth from the theological dogmas which I sincerely believed. . . . The memory of my own suffering has prevented me from ever shadowing one young soul with the superstitions of the Christian religion.