No despot ever flung forth his legions to die in foreign conquest, no privilege-ruled nation ever erupted across its borders, to lock in death embrace with another, but behind them loomed the driving power of a population too large for its boundaries and its natural resources.
Margaret SangerI think the greatest sin in the world is bringing children into the world that have disease from their parents, that have no chance to be a human being, practically. Delinquents, prisoners, all sorts of things just marked when they're born. That to me is the greatest sin - that people can - can commit.
Margaret SangerApply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted, or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring.
Margaret SangerThe greatest issue is to raise the question of birth control out of the gutter of obscenity ... into the light of intelligence and human understanding.
Margaret SangerAs often as I have witnessed the miracle [birth], held the perfect creature with its tiny hands and feet, each time I have felt as though I were entering a cathedral with prayer in my heart.
Margaret SangerHow are we to breed a race of human thoroughbreds unless we follow the same plan? We must make this country into a garden of children instead of a disorderly back lot overrun with human weeds.
Margaret SangerAs I look back upon my life, I see that every part of it was a preparation for the next. The most trivial of incidents fits into the larger pattern like a mosaic in a preconceived design.
Margaret SangerLife has taught me one supreme lesson. This is that we must—if we are really to live at all, if we are to enjoy the life more abundant promised by the Sages of Wisdom—we must put our convictions into action. My remuneration has been that I have been privileged to act out my faith.
Margaret SangerWoman was and is condemned to a system under which the lawful rapes exceed the unlawful ones a million to one.
Margaret SangerThe undeniably feeble-minded should, indeed, not only be discouraged but prevented from propagating their kind.
Margaret SangerVery early in my childhood I associated poverty, toil, unemployment, drunkenness, cruelty, quarreling, fighting, debts, jail with large families.
Margaret SangerOur failure to segregate morons who are increasing and multiplying . . . demonstrates our foolhardy and extravagant sentimentalism.
Margaret SangerThe submission of her body without love or desire is degrading to the woman's finer sensibility, all the marriage certificates on earth to the contrary notwithstanding.
Margaret SangerHordes of people [are] born, who live, yet who have done absolutely nothing to advance the race one iota. Their lives are hopeless repetitions… Such human weeds clog up the path, drain up the energies and the resources of this little earth. We must clear the way for a better world; we must cultivate our garden.
Margaret SangerThe campaign for birth control is not merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical with the final aims of eugenics.
Margaret SangerGive dysgenic groups [people with 'bad genes'] in our population their choice of segregation or [compulsory] sterilization.
Margaret SangerBirth control appeals to the advanced radical because it is calculated to undermine the authority of the Christian churches. I look forward to seeing humanity free someday of the tryanny of Christianity no less than Capitalism.
Margaret SangerTowards orthodox religion, father's own attitude remained one of tolerance. He looked upon the New Testament as the noble story of a human being which, because of ignorance and the lack of printing presses, had become exaggerated. He maintained that religions served their purpose; some people depended on them all their lives to make them honest. Others did not need to be so held in line. But subjection to any church was a reflection on strength and character. You should be able to get from yourself what you had to go go church for.
Margaret SangerMore children from the fit, less from the unfit -- that is the chief aim of birth control.
Margaret SangerLike begets like. We gather perfect fruit from perfect trees... . Abused soil brings forth stunted growths.
Margaret SangerThe first right of every child is to be wanted, to be desired, to be planned for with an intensity of love that gives it its title to being.
Margaret SangerLike the advocates of Birth Control, the eugenists, for instance, are seeking to assist the race toward the elimination of the unfit. Both are seeking a single end but they lay emphasis upon different methods.
Margaret SangerI cannot refrain from saying that women must come to recognize there is some function of womanhood other than being a child-bearing machine.
Margaret SangerNo more children should be born when the parents, though healthy themselves, find that their children are physically or mentally defective.
Margaret SangerWomen of the working class, especially wage workers, should not have more than two children at most. The average working man can support no more and and the average working woman can take care of no more in decent fashion.
Margaret SangerWoman must have her freedom, the fundamental freedom of choosing whether or not she will be a mother and how many children she will have. Regardless of what man's attitude may be, that problem is hers - and before it can be his, it is hers alone.
Margaret SangerI resolved that women should have knowledge of contraception. They have every right to know about their own bodies. I would strikeout--I would scream from the housetops. I would tell the world what was going on in the lives of these poor women. I would be heard. No matter what it should cost. I would be heard.
Margaret SangerWe are paying for and even submitting to the dictates of an ever increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all-that the wealth of individuals and of state is being diverted from the development and the progress of human expression and civilization.
Margaret SangerThe most serious charge that can be brought against modern benevolence is that it encourages the perpetuation of defectives, delinquents and dependents. These are the most dangerous elements in the world community, the most devastating curse on human progress and expression.
Margaret SangerShe goes through the vale of death alone, each time a babe is born. As it is the right neither of man nor the state to coerce her into this ordeal, so it is her right to decide whether she will endure it.
Margaret SangerThe most successful educational approach to the Negro is throgh a religious appeal. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the Minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.
Margaret Sanger