Quotes from Charlotte Perkins Gilman

ONE of the most distinctive features of the human mind is to forecast better things. "We look before and after And pine for what is not.

Ele disse que, com o poder de imaginação que tenho e minha rotina de inventar histórias, uma debilidade dos nervos como a minha só pode resultar em fantasias, e que devo usar minha força de vontade e meu bom senso para controlar essa propensão

there are some things one takes for granted, supposes are mutually understood, and to which both parties may repeatedly refer without ever meaning the same thing.

And woman should stand beside man as the comrade of his soul, not the servant of his body.

I've got out at last," said I, "in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!

Às vezes eu acho que se ao menos eu estivesse bem o suficiente para escrever um pouco, aliviaria a pressão das ideias e eu poderia descansar. - O papel de parede amarelo

I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time. Of course I don't when John is here, or anybody else, but when I am alone.

and sometimes this daily disappointment, this constant agony of hope deferred, would bring me to my knees by that door begging her to open to me, crying to her in every term of passionate endearment and persuasion that tortured heart of man could think to use.

There are many who think in one syllable, who say, 'women don't dress to please men--they dress to please themselves--and to outshine other women.

Patriotism is largely pride, and very largely combativeness. Patriotism generally has a chip on its shoulder.

But reason has no power against feeling, and feeling older than history is no light matter.

I don't like to look out of the windows even—there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast. I wonder if they all come out of that wallpaper, as I did?

You see he does not believe I am sick!

The only thing they can think of about a man is Fatherhood!" said Terry in high scorn. "Fatherhood! As if a man was always wanting to be a father!

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) was a prominent American feminist, sociologist, novelist, writer of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction, and a lecturer for social reform.

I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper.

I think sometimes that if only I were well enough to write a little it would relieve the press of ideas and rest me. But I find that I get pretty tired when I try.

But these nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing. John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows that there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him.

Do you know you are a real comfort," she told him suddenly. "I never knew a man before who could—well, leave off being a man for a moment and just be a human creature.

It was not a pleasant evening. She tried to read, but the insistent gnawing thought that her life was done, and not very well done at that, appeared on every page. She tried to sew—but the work she had at hand was unsatisfactory. "It's only another failure!" she said to herself, and laid it down. She had no fancy work. If her books failed her she was lonely indeed.

Ele disse que, com o poder de imaginação que tenho e meu hábito de inventar histórias, uma debilidade dos nervos como a minha só pode resultar em fantasias exaltadas, e que devo usar minha força de vontade e meu bom senso para controlar essa propensão.

What Diantha Did was first published in serialised form in Gilman's magazine The Forerunner between late 1909 and October 1910.

It took some time to make clear to those three sweet-faced women the process which robs the cow of her calf, and the calf of its true food; and the talk led us to further discussion of the meat business. They heard it out, looking very white, and presently begged to be excused.

O que me levou à convicção de que os "charmes femininos" que apreciamos não são nada femininos, mas apenas reflexos da masculinidade — desenvolvidos para nos agradar porque elas precisam nos agradar —, nem um pouco essenciais ao desempenho.