Quotes from Sonia Johnson

I know that Goddess ritual, insofar as it generates reverence for and celebrates that which is female, which is us, is fiercely empowering, and that her image in our minds—images of ourselves as deity—is necessary as a blueprint for a more authoritative mode of being in the world. The Goddess is a metaphor for our own and all women's creative, healing, transformative powers, a representation of our inner selves.

Obviously, the anti-ERA people are tickled about my ordeal because it proves that the ERA breaks up families. When they point out that feminism is a dangerous thing, I just say marriage is pretty precarious too.

What we have most to fear is failure of the heart.

A friend said to me, 'Be glad for your troubles - they strengthen you.' Well, if that's the truth, I'm going to be so strong they'll have to beat me to death!

A friend said to me, 'Be glad for your troubles - they strengthen you.' Well, if that's the truth, I'm going to be so strong they'll have to beat me to death!

How desperately we wish to maintain our trust in those we love! In the face of everything, we try to find reasons to trust. Because losing faith is worse than falling out of love.

All bonafide revolutions are of necessity revolutions of the spirit.

What we have most to fear is failure of the heart.

In our home we grew up thinking we were Mormons first and human beings second.

I still feel Mormon. Those men in Salt Lake City can't decide who's Mormon and who isn't.

So long as we think dugout canoes are the only possibility-all that is real or can be real-we will never see the ship, we will never feel the free wind blow.

It's only when we have nothing else to hold onto that we're willing to try something very audacious and scary.

Sometimes I think we can tell how important it is to risk by how dangerous it is to do so.

I liked the name of the amendment. I couldn't help feeling uneasy that the church was opposing something with a name as beautiful as the Equal Rights Amendment.

Women cannot serve two masters at once who are urgently beaming antithetical orders.... Either we believe in patriarchy the rule of men over women - or we believe in equality.

The church belongs to its hierarchy, which is men in power. Those outside the hierarchy, and especially women, are at best only renters and at worst squatters in religious territory.

I came from the most orthodox background you could ask for.

It's funny how heterosexuals have lives and the rest of us have "lifestyles."