Whether our feet are compressed in iron shoes, our faces hidden with veils and masks; whether yoked with cows to draw the plow through its furrows, or classed with idiots, lunatics and criminals in the laws and constitutions of the State, the principle is the same; for the humiliations of the spirit are as real as the visible badges of servitude.

I would have girls regard themselves not as adjectives but as nouns.

With age come the inner, the higher life. Who would be forever young, to dwell always in externals?

... our scholarships should be bestowed on those whose ability and earnestness in the primary department have been proved, and whose capacity for a higher education is fully shown. This is the best work women of wealth can do, and I hope in the future they will endow scholarships for their own sex instead of giving millions of dollars to institutions for boys, as they have done in the past.

I have endeavoured to dissipate these religious superstitions from the minds of women, and base their faith on science and reason, where I found for myself at last that peace and comfort I could never find in the Bible and the church.

I had been invited to speak after the lunch. But I did not go to the table until the feast ended, as I never like to eat or talk before speaking.

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